US Army 65e The Infantry Regiment, the only all-Hispanic unit primarily from Puerto Rico, inspires pride in its fierce fighting in the Korean War of the early 1950s.
These soldiers also spent decades trying to clear their names.
The separated regiment, which took the nickname of Borinquenes, honoring the indigenous Taíno name for their homeland, went from being advertised by General Douglas MacArthur for his bravery on the battlefield to 91 court-martialed and jailed in 1952.
After intense public pressure, the military quickly pardoned them, later blaming incompetent military leaders, bad military tactics, racism, and organizational prejudice for the events that brought the soldiers into the brig.
The findings of an internal military investigation gave some justification to the soldiers, their families and the pride of Puerto Rico. But many have died while awaiting the broader exemption that would truly erase their names from the history books.
“It is a day of pride for all those whose lives they saved and whose freedom they defended,” President Barack Obama said at the White House ceremony in 2014 which awarded the once vilified regiment the Congressional Gold Medal, the country’s highest honor. “You have deserved a sacred place in our history. “
These words of the president and this redemption from above have taken more than 60 years.
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The beginnings of the Borinqueneers
The Borinquenes are best known for their fighting during the Korean War (1950-53). But the Puerto Rican regiment existed half a century before that.
After losing the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines to America. A year later, Congress authorized the U.S. military to form the Puerto Rican Volunteer Infantry Battalion, made up mostly of men from its newly acquired territory.
He was drafted into the regular US Army in 1908. And in 1920, two years after serving in World War I, he became the 65e Infantry regiment.
During World War II, his soldiers won a Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and 900 Purple Hearts for combat in Europe. But it was their impressive maneuvers in a joint Atlantic Fleet training exercise for the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, returning to Puerto Rico after the war, who propelled the 65e to the front lines of Korea.
Along the way, the soldiers took the nickname Borinquenes.
Korean War: Distinguished Service Deserves MacArthur’s Praise
Shortly after arriving in Pusan, South Korea in September 1950, the 65e The infantry became known as a “well-led, well-trained and highly motivated” unit in various battles in the muddy hills and brushwood during the harsh Korean winter.
More specifically, the 65e fought the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in the Chosin Reservoir to safely evacuate the trapped US Army’s First Battalion. Officials who initially scoffed at having to command the Rum and Coke Platoon quickly changed their minds.
Private Santiago Laboy of the Fighting 65th in combat training at Camp Tortuguero in April 1951.
Bettmann Archives / Getty Images
By the end of the 65th’s first year in Korea, it had suffered 1,510 casualties while killing 15,787 enemy soldiers and taking 2,169 prisoners, according to the Historic Review on the 65e Court Martial: Report of the Military History Center of the Department of the Army.
General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded the United Nations forces led by the United States at the start of the war, wrote in 1951 that the 65eThe s soldiers have shown “tremendous ability and courage in the field operations.” They are a great credit to Puerto Rico and I am proud to have them under my command. “
READ MORE: Why are North Korea and South Korea divided?
Public shame and mass courts martial
But in the fall of 1952, the fortunes of the unit changed. Chinese troops launched major offensives against two US-held outposts, partially defended by the 65e: Outpost Kelly in September and Jackson Heights a month later. The Borinquenes suffered heavy losses. The morale of the troops collapsed further.
After the carnage at Outpost Kelly, unit commanders cut Puerto Ricans’ rice and bean rations, stripped the Borinquenes nickname on unit vehicles and asked a soldier to hang an “I’m a coward” sign around his neck. They ordered the men to shave their mustaches until they could prove they were “real men” in combat.
Deeply insulted and faced with what most thought was a suicide mission, dozens of soldiers refused orders to retake the Jackson Heights outpost. The military quickly court martialed and sentenced 91 of them for desertion and disobeying orders in December. All were disgracefully dismissed. The sentences ranged from one to 16 years imprisonment and forced labor.
“They treated us … as if we were worth nothing”, Raúl Reyes Castañeira, the youngest of the four brothers who followed in their father’s footsteps in the 65se Infantry, Univision’s said Aquí y Ahora news magazine show. “And we were giving our lives. There are so many young men dying. It was terrible.”
The public backlash prompts an internal investigation
The military tried to keep the courts-martial silent, but letters sent by soldiers and the local press blew up the story in January 1953. The Puerto Rican government, Congress, and the public demanded answers.
Army officials have told Congress that the rotation of new, inexperienced soldiers and officers into the regiment – and their inability to speak English – has led to failures and courts martial. Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens invoked the language barrier to justify the pardon of all convicts, the quashing of their sentences and their reinstatement in the military.
A subsequent internal investigation listed many other problems, including inept leadership, a severe shortage of ammunition and military tactics that unnecessarily increased the number of casualties. The 65e suffered 806 casualties in just two months defending and attempting to recapture the strategically dubious outposts of Kelly and Jackson Heights.
The inquiry also blamed “a command environment guilty of ethnic and organizational biases”, both on and off the battlefield.
An affront to Puerto Ricans
Investigators pointed out that commanders who court-martialed Puerto Rican soldiers had on other occasions chosen not to prosecute white soldiers for abandoning the battlefield. Rather than taking the opportunity to reform the 65e or fix certain practices, the commanders chose to punish the battalion.
The investigation also highlighted a double standard in the way commanders treated and assessed Puerto Rican officers and white officers and other instances of ethnic or racial bias in the military command structure.
For cultural historian Silvia Alvarez Curbelo, the courts martial that tarnished the 65ewere not seen on the island as isolated cases of discrimination. Rather, they were an affront to Puerto Rican identity as American citizens at a time when the island was ascendant, having elected its first governor four years earlier, had just ratified its constitution that year and was on the point of ending a five-year wave of mass migration to the Americas.
The Congressional Gold Medal was presented in honor of the 65th Infantry Regiment.
Alex Wong / Getty Images
“The performance of the Puerto Rican soldier was also about dignity… a mixture of pride, courage, bravery, self-respect and patriotism,” says Alvarez Curbelo, professor of communication at the University of Puerto Rico.
This is why the soldiers still alive today say that true redemption is important, not only to clear their own names, but for Puerto Ricans to collectively remember the sacrifices made. During the Korean War, also known as the “Forgotten War,” some 61,000 Puerto Ricans served in the US military, of which 48,000 were recruited on the island.. With 743 dead and 2,318 injured, Puerto Rico suffered one casualty per 660 population, more than double the rate for the continental United States
Norberto Rivera, a Borinqueneer who survived Kelly Outpost’s bloodbath, said Aquí y Ahora he welcomes the Congressional Medal of Honor as a balm to those days which he remembers with great nostalgia and sorrow.
“I think the credit, the recognition, should go to these men who never returned home,” Rivera said.
