Most Shameful Moment in Military History
Most Shameful Moment in Military History
America has had its ups and downs. This was the lowest point.
Private Felix Longoria, killed in action 1945
We love America. Its big and beautiful. But, like all human communities, the USA is a community of humans and humans, even the best of us, are imperfect. We never do everything right. We learn from our past by remembering the good and the bad. This isn’t an argument for “woke” histories, like the 1619 Project. They are political agendas masquerading as history, intended to command your obedience, not inform the citizenry. We have written on this topic before. Wokeness aside, there is virtue in looking at the good and the bad of our history. That’s how we come to understand the value of virtue.
The litany of inexcusable moments and embarrassments in the U.S. military’s past is as long as our history.
At the start, we were embarrassed by the Newburgh Conspiracy (1782), where the revolutionary army threatened to march on the Continental Congress.
During the American Civil War, Americans imprisoned Americans under the most pitiful conditions imaginable in the prisoner of war camp at Andersonville (1864). As one soldier recalled, “The camp was covered with vermin all over. You could not sit down anywhere. You might go and pick the lice all off of you, and sit down for a half a moment and get up and you would be covered with them. In between these two hills it was very swampy, all black mud, and where the filth was emptied it was all alive; there was a regular buzz there all the time, and it was covered with large white maggots.”
In 1890, the U.S. Army slaughtered three hundred men, women, and children of the Lakota tribe at the massacre at Wounded Knee.
In 1932, the U.S. Army, was ordered to drive out veterans, “Bonus Marchers” encamped outside Washington, DC.
After the Vietnam War (1973), returning servicemen were often treated with scorn. As one wounded returning soldier remembered, we “felt excitement at being back on American soil. But looking out the window and seeing civilians stop to watch the small convoy of hospital-bound vehicles, his excitement turned to confusion. “I remember feeling like, what could I do to acknowledge them, and I just gave the peace signal….And instead of getting return peace fingers, I got the middle finger.”
While there are many disappointing moments of the past to chose from, our pick for the most shameful is the Felix Longoria incident.
Who was Felix Longoria? Private Longoria was from the tiny Texas town of Three Rivers. He fought in the 1945 Philippines campaign in the Pacific during World War II. After only two weeks in action, his platoon was cut down in a Japanese ambush.
In 1949, his remains were identified and returned to his family for burial.
What happened? When Beatriz Longoria, his widow, tried to arrange a funeral she was the denied use of the local funeral chapel because the family were Mexican-American. She was told that the “white people would not stand for it.” She was also told her husband would have to be buried in the “Mexican” part of the cemetery—the part fenced off by barbwire.
Dr. Hector Garcia, a World War II veteran and civil rights and veterans activist sent a letter of protest to Senator Lyndon Johnson, which was made available to the press and drew national attention, including commentary from the national pundits like Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell. Winchell said in his national radio broadcast, that the “state of Texas, which looms so large on the map, looks mighty small tonight….”
Letter sent to Senator Lyndon Johnson
In response to the national outrage, Senator Johnson arranged for Longoria to buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
Why don’t we remember this? The story was never completely forgotten. At the time it made national news, much to the embarrassment of the good folks of Texas.
The American writer Edna Ferber based an incident in her best selling novel Giant, on the shameful treatment of Longoria and his family. The incident is also portrayed in the 1956 film version.
A fictional version of the Longoria incident was featured in Giant.
There is also a 2010 documentary about “The Longoria Affair.”
As recently as this July, legislation was introduced in Congress to name the Three Rivers post office after Felix Longoria. When introducing the legislation, the sponsoring congressman wrote, “Private Longoria is a hero. He made the ultimate sacrifice during World War II and his legacy must not be forgotten….His family’s struggle for a proper military funeral echoes the struggle for equality and recognition Mexican Americans have faced throughout our nation’s history. I introduced this legislation in remembrance of the sacrifice Private Longoria and many other military service members gave to protect freedom at home and abroad.”
This incident might not have been the greatest injustice in American military history. But this one life, this one family, their sacrifice, reminds so powerfully of our responsibility, to our veterans and to all of us to strive to be our better selves, to honor their service and be worthy of the freedom they fought to secure. This is injustice that should never be forgotten. A just society is nourished by learning from its past.
Other Extreme History from War and More
Greatest Killer in World History
The Greatest Power of All Times
Worst Defeat in U.S. Military History
Greatest Warrior King of All Times
The Most Violent Place on Earth
And in the “Shameless Plug” category.
A perceptive, vivid, and insightful panorama of one of the most brutal, yet least understood, campaigns of the Pacific theater of World War II. A must read! -- Russell A. Hart, Hawai'i Pacific University
In 1942, US and Australian forces waged a brutal war against the Japanese in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Plunged into a primitive, hostile world in which their modes of battle seemed out of place and time, they fought, suffered, hated, starved, and killed in muck and mud. James Carafano's vivid history brings this all to life. Ranging from detailed descriptions of specific battles to accounts of the fates of prisoners and the crucial role played by New Guinea's Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, Carafano chronicles the grueling, and ultimately successful, Allied campaign, telling a tale of war at the very edge of human endurance.
And….
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While a horrible and shameful story, to call it the "Most Shameful Moment in Military History," is entirely incorrect. It was not so, a shameful moment in Texas history, yes. A shameful moment for the town of Three Rivers Texas, certainly. Equally shamefully it is just one example of the injustices committed because of prejudice during the Jim Crow era. But in no way can what happened be blamed on the Military, and in fact, when the issue became public knowledge, the Military buried Felix Longoria with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The Military did the honorable thing.