DSC Upgraded To Medal of Honor
In 1996, Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka secured a Congressionally mandated review of records for Asian-Americans who had earned the Distinguished Service Cross in World War II. Congress reviewed the records to determine whether they were unfairly denied the military's highest award for valor.
On June 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton, bestowed the Medal of Honor on Davila and 21 other World War II servicemen of Asian descent at a White Houseceremony. Only seven of 22 recipients were still alive when the medals were handed out. Previously only two of the 40,000-plus Asian-Americans who served in World War II had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
Army Secretary Louis Caldera inducted the soldiers into the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes on June 22. Harriet Davila, his wife, had died six months before, on December 25, 1999.
Read more about this topic: Rudolph B. Davila
Famous quotes containing the word honor:
“We honor the rich because they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper to man, proper to us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)