Though he had landed on the beaches of Normandy and
been wounded in battle fighting with the U.S. Army, Staff
Sergeant Marcario García was not yet a U.S. citizen when
President Harry S. Truman awarded him the Medal of
Honor on August 23, 1945.
García became the first Mexican national to receive the
American military’s highest honor.
García was born in the Mexican state of Coahuila, which
borders Texas, in 1920.
When he was young, his family moved to Texas to work
on a cotton farm, and the work prevented him from
progressing beyond a grade-school level of education.
At the age of 22, he enlisted in the Army and was deployed
to the European Theater of World War II.
García was wounded in action during the D-Day landings,
spent four months recovering, and then re-joined his unit
as it advanced into Germany.
On November 27th, 1944, García was acting squad leader
when his unit was assigned to clear two German machine
gun nests.
García single-handedly cleared the first, advancing with
little cover and receiving multiple wounds in the process.
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