Will Hispanic Doughboy from El Paso get Medal of Honor?
Published: 8 January 2025
By Sig Christenson
via the San Antonio Express-News newspaper (TX) website

Serna framed
Pvt. Marcelino Serna is Texas’ top WW I vet in line for Medal of Honor after century of discrimination. Courtesy/USCIS El Paso Field Office
Pvt. Marcelino Serna’s heroics and lethal effectiveness on the battlefield, where he killed more than two dozen enemy soldiers in a single fight, made him was one of the most decorated U.S. soldiers in World War I. But he never received the Medal of Honor.
Civil rights groups and friends of the late veteran — who died in 1992, two months shy of his 96th birthday — say he deserved the nation’s highest award for gallantry in combat but didn’t get it because he was Hispanic.
They had hoped President Joe Biden would correct that by posthumously bestowing the medal on Serna, a native of Mexico who joined the Army after being detained for living illegally in the United States.
That arrest launched an extraordinary journey that took him to the killing fields of France and back to El Paso for a quiet life as a naturalized U.S. citizen.
But Biden hasn’t budged, to the frustration of Serna’s advocates.
They had reason to think the president would act. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth both signed off last year on posthumously awarding a Medal of Honor to Serna, and the Pentagon sent Serna’s records to the White House for Biden’s review, according to Lawrence Romo of San Antonio, a former Air Force officer who served as President Barack Obama’s director of the U.S. Selective Service Commission, and others familiar with the process.
Those actions came after a years-long campaign by the League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC), the American GI Forum and other civil rights organizations, as well as federal lawmakers, including U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, and Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio.
Last week, Biden awarded seven Medals of Honor — including one to the late four-star Army Gen. Richard Cavazos, a South Texas native and the namesake of Fort Cavazos — in a ceremony at the White House. But he took no action on two other award packages, one of them for Serna.
In an email, a staffer for Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said she was informed that the White House sent Serna’s Medal of Honor posthumous award package back to Austin, with no action taken by the president.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Though denied the Medal of Honor, Serna did receive a Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest award for wartime heroism. He also was awarded two Croix de Guerre medals from France, the Croce al Merito di Guerra from Italy and several other honors.
Rep. Castro noted that Serna was the first Hispanic soldier to receive the Distinguished Service Cross. But being denied the Medal of Honor was an injustice, he said.
“This was a time when the actions of Hispanic soldiers were mostly ignored, and in some ways he’s kind of a victim of his era,” Castro told the Express-News. “He was an immigrant himself, and as this debate rages about immigrants in society, this is a perfect example of an immigrant who fought for his country and fought to protect freedom around the world.”
Read the entire article on the San Antonio Express-News website here:
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