Center For American Values....Pueblo, Colorado

DATE:  April 2, 2016                                         

SITE:  Center For American Values

LOCATION:  101 S. Main Street, Pueblo, Pueblo County, Colorado

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: 

“What extraordinary things ordinary people can do when they place service above self”

Set along the very pretty Pueblo Riverwalk was this interesting place. 

Now, now…don’t get all weirded out by the name of this place. This isn’t some ultra-conservative think tank or hideout or anything like that.

It is simply a place where Medal of Honor recipients are, well, honored. They seek to not only honor the recipients but to also educate all visitors about these amazing men. 

When you first walk in, you’ll notice that the walls are covered with pictures. Then you find out that each of those pictures represent a person who made extreme sacrifices to uphold the idea of freedom. 

So why is this in Pueblo, Colorado? Because they are known as the “City of Heroes”. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon awarding one recipient, stated “What is it in the water out there in Pueblo. All you guys turn out to be heroes”. 

They have portraits of 150+ recipients; each with a personal quote. Now this quote is totally up to the person, but can relate to the reason the medal was given, or values the person holds, or messages to the future. 

One thing I found fascinating…I’m sure every photographer struggles with choosing just the right picture and trying to get the person photographed to agree. This photographer, however, would choose his 3 best pictures and then let the person choose the one they wanted…How the person chose to be represented…how that person wants ME to see them. 

The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest military honor awarded only to military personnel for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States”. 

There are 3 versions, Army, Air Force and Navy (Marines and Coast Guard are awarded the Naval medal).

The medal was established in 1861 for the Navy and 1862 for the Army.

In total, there have been 3,514 medals given to 3,495 persons since 1862. Why the difference? Because 19 people have been recognized twice! The nation’s highest honor and they received two.

Think about it, since 1862, there have been millions and millions of people who have served in our military, and in the 150 since the Medal of Honors existence, only 3,495 people have received it.

And because the Medal of Honor was the ONLY award available, just less than ½ of those medals were awarded for service during the 4 years of the Civil War.

There was some disagreement over whether the medals should be given at all. It was a very European tradition and it was early enough in our history that we were still trying to shed any vestiges of appearing to be European.

The tradition is for the President to present the award but the first 6 medals were presented by the Secretary of War to six Union Army volunteers on March 25, 1863. The men had hijacked a Confederate train. Unfortunately the leader, a civilian, was ineligible to receive a medal.

As the medal is only for military personnel, there are two ways a recipient can be nominated…one, by the approval of their military chain of command and the other by a member of Congress, normally on behalf of a constituent.

In 1917, after concern was expressed that there were honorees who had received medals for reasons other than distinguished service, a review board looked at and removed 911 medals from the honor roll. These included a group who simply reenlisted to guard the capital during the Civil War and 29 members of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral detail.

Since 1941, more than half the medals (61.5%) presented have been posthumously to the recipient’s family.

Finally, in 1963 there was clarification of the “acts” that must be performed in order to be nominated for the award

• While engaged in action against an enemy of the United States; or
• While engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or 
• While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in with the United States is not a belligerent party

Just so you know, people are not just given the award and a nice “thanks” and then sent on their way. There are special privileges and courtesies that come along with it, such as…

• Receive a pension above and beyond military pensions
• Receives special entitlements in air transportation
• Eligibility for burial at Arlington National Cemetery
• Children are admitted to military academies regardless of nomination or quota’s
• Invited to all presidential inaugurations and inaugural balls

 

Those are by law, but in addition and I think this is really cool….members of the uniformed service are encouraged to render salutes to recipients as a matter of respect and courtesy regardless of rank or status…in or out of uniform. This would be one of the very few instances where someone may receive a salute from someone of higher rank.

Interesting facts about some recipients…

• There are 19 people who received the award twice…14 for separate actions and 5 who received both the Army and Navy medal for the same action
• Since WWII, 851 medals have been awarded with 523 of those posthumously
• One has been awarded to a woman, Mary Edwards Walker. In fact, hers was taken away during the 1917 review and then restored in 1977
• President Lincoln met privately with the first six soldiers to win the Honor
• There has been only one Coast Guardsman to receive the medal
• 65 Canadians have received the honor while serving in the U.S. military, most in the Civil War
• The youngest recipient was an 11 year old drummer in the Civil War (the youngest in the 20^th century was a 17 year old who shielded his fellow squad members from grenades)
• The 4 Unknowns entombed at Arlington are recipients of the medal…the Vietnam remains were identified and the family asked for the Medal of Honor assigned to those remains. The request was denied saying the award was for ALL Vietnam unknowns, not specifically this one.
• There are 5 foreign unknowns who have been designated with the Honor..British, French, Romanian, Italian and Belgian.
• Although the law says there must be an act of valor, there have been exceptions…Charles Lindbergh and Major General Adolphus Greeley
• The last person to receive two medals was in 1918
• There have been father and son recipients… Arthur MacArthur Jr. & Douglas MacArthur and also Theodore Roosevelt & Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
• Theodore Roosevelt is the only president to have received the Medal of Honor
• Five pairs of brothers have received the medal

The nomination and awarding of the Medal of Honor has not always been inclusive. Although a review was done in 1917, no one looked at whether some were being excluded for the reason of race, religion or sex.

A 1993 study to ensure that prejudice or discrimination had not deterred the nomination of some, it was found there were no medals awarded to any soldier of African American descent who served in WWII. Ten people who had received the Distinguished Service Cross were instead awarded the Medal of Honor.

A similar study in 1998 looked into the nomination, or lack thereof, for Asian Americans. In this case, the panel found 22 instances where the Medal of Honor should have been given and they were in 2000.

In 2014, as part of a Congressional mandated review, an additional 24 medals were given to Hispanic, Jewish and African Americans.

 I read several things about how the law protects someone saying they received the award, the wearing of the medal, and even how it’s made. Special protections under U.S. law makes it illegal for any unauthorized adornment, sale or manufacture. Curiously, since a Supreme Court decision in the early 2000’s, said it is illegal to wear a medal you were not awarded BUT you can say you received one without actually having done so.

A politician in California…figures…declared he was the recipient of the Medal of Honor. When it was found that he hadn’t, he was sentenced to jail time. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court who ruled that his First Amendment “free speech” rights had been violated and the sentence was struck down. You’re kidding…apparently lying about receiving the highest honor in the military is protected by the First Amendment. All I can do is shake my head in bewilderment.

Not everyone may agree that we should have fought the wars, or conflicts, that the U.S. have been involved with…but you have to agree that these men took up arms when asked to by their country. They left their families and normal life and fought for the idea of freedom. These men, whose pictures line these walls, are the heroes we should be looking up to.

Japanese American Detention Camp - Sacramento, California

DATE VISITED:  03/28/2015

HISTORICAL SITE:  Japanese American Detention Camp

LOCATION:  Walerga Park - 4901 Palm Ave., Sacramento, Sacramento Co., CA

MARKER #:  934

DEDICATED:  February 1987

"Walerga Assembly Center was established by the United States at the outset of World War II to assemble and temporily detain, without charge or trial, 4,739 Sacramento residents solely because of their Japanese ancestry. Approximately 120,000 persons were uprooted from their West Coast homes and interned in ten War Relocation Centers. Over two-thirds were American citizens by birth. Given the opportunity, many thousands left the ten centers to work on farms and in war industries or to serve with valor in the armed forces. Their acts and deeds gave living proof that Americanism is a matter of mind and heart, not a matter of race or ancestry. May this memorial remind all Americans to be alert so that such injustices never recur.

Camp Kohler succeeded Walerga Assembly Center with the departure of the last Japanese American internee's in late Jun, 1942. After being taken over by the Army Signal Corps, the camp's facilities were greatly expanded to house and train military personnel. Camp Kohler became of the Corps three principal training centers during World War II."

**closer look below

Marker Placed By: Dedicated by the Japanese American Community of Sacramento in cooperation with Sunrise Recreation and Park District 

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: I wasn't sure I would go out this weekend for two reasons. One, I had not finished writing my blog articles until Friday but the second reason is that I am sort of pouting over the fact that I only get 2 days off this weekend. It's amazing how quickly you get used to working only 3 days a week.

But my retirement is edging closer...as so many people keep reminding me and I do realize how fortunate I am to be able to retire so early. With that being said, I decided to pick a monument close to home and nothing too challenging.

In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order which basically gave America the right to "detain" those who were of Japanese, Italian and German ancestry. While there were Italian's and German's interned, it is the Japanese that were treated more unjustly than the other groups. After all, the Italian's and German's had more or less assimilated into American society whereas the Japanese kept to themselves and were encouraged to do so by most Americans.

I find this an interesting chance from the monument I visited last week, the Wakamatsu Tea & Silk Farm Colony. My research there found Americans taking a more positive stance towards the first Japanese coming to America.

During the period from 1860 to 1940, there was a large influx of Japanese, mostly to Hawaii to work in the cane fields. We have found one of the reasons there were so many Japanese migrating away from Japan was in response to the Boshin War. Once here, when their contracts expired, some stayed in Hawaii but many moved to California.

The Japanese naturally kept to themselves but it was made worse by the refusal of the real estate industry to sell properties to Japanese Americans outside of existing Japanese enclaves. In 1913, the California Assembly restricted land ownership to citizens and in 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the government’s right to deny citizenship to Japanese immigrants. Not our finest moment.

When Japan entered WWII by bombing Pearl Harbor, in 1941, Americans were free to fear the Japanese they had come to disdain.

I've always said it's easy to sit in judgment of our past seeing it through the eyes of today's world.

EO #9066 gave the Secretary of War the power to decide which areas of the U.S. were to be considered "military zones". He deemed the entire west coast to be of enough military importance that the Department of Justice was ordered to detain anyone of Japanese ancestry with the exception of those serving in the military.

 

The Department of Justice had some real ethical issues over the detainment's and so the U.S. Army was instructed to carry out the orders.

I read a very interesting (ok, I can see all my family and friends rolling their eyes) article about the interments...looking at it from the vantage point of what was going on in 1941/1942; how quickly the decision had to be made and some of the factors. I'm not saying it was right, but again, it is not us in 2015 making that decision.

But leaving that up to history, the fact is, it happened. The Japanese were to be moved to what the U.S. would consider to be areas at less risk; mainly where no one else wanted to be. But because the decision was made quickly, those camps were not built and the deadline to "surrender" themselves was March 30, 1942. A little over a month!

So the U.S. opened "assembly" areas and the one I visited was in Sacramento. Today, the site is Walerga Park but originally it was a migrant labor camp and, while today's park is small, the original camp was larger than I had thought...eleven blocks with 225 buildings. The population would eventually reach 4,739 individuals before being moved to the permanent site at Tule Lake. It was populated for only 5 months before being closed as a detention center.

 

The site was used for other purposes before burning down in 1947.

In 1982, an official government study found the internments were unjustified and were based on "race prejudice and war hysteria".

PublicLaw #100-383 recommended a written apology from U.S. Government and $20k tax free "redress" person so interred. Those disbursements were made starting in 1990 and I remember someone I worked with saying her father received the funds.