Title: Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with 5 Stories of Hispanic American Military Heroes · United Service Organizations
Headings: Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with 5 Stories of Hispanic American Military Heroes
Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with 5 Stories of Hispanic American Military Heroes
By Danielle DeSimone
1. Marcelino Serna
2. Joe P. Martínez
3. Carmen Contreras-Bozak
4. Angel Mendez
5. Richard Edward Cavazos

Content: But for Carmen Contreras-Bozak, a Puerto Rican from New York City, the call to duty was more important than a traditional, domestic lifestyle. Inspired by the War Department and her own sense of patriotism, Contreras-Bozak decided to enlist in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps; she was the first Hispanic American to serve in what would later be known as the Women’s Army Corps. During WWII, the Army specifically recruited bilingual Hispanic women to work in cryptology, communications and interpretation. Contreras-Bozak volunteered to go to North Africa with one of these companies despite the extreme risk (at the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the war, service women were not treated the same as servicemen and did not have the same protections under international law as male soldiers if captured). Upon arrival in country, Contreras-Bozak was assigned to the Signal Corps, where she sent and received coded messages between Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters in Algiers and the battlefield in Tunisia. Their encampment came under German fire often, but Contreras-Bozak continued to work for the general until an infection sent her to a stateside hospital in 1945. She was discharged as a technical sergeant, today’s equivalent of a sergeant (E-4), and received the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, two Battle Stars, a World War II Victory Medal, an American Campaign Medal, a WAAC Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal throughout her time in the Army. 4. Angel Mendez
Angel Mendez, a Puerto Rican U.S. Marine who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions in the Vietnam War.