I can't stop thinking about Arizona's Medal of Honor recipients
I find myself thinking this Memorial Day weekend about Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jose Jimenez.
He was a Mexican national who came to the U.S., to Arizona, in the 1960s, in his teens, following his mother and sister.
He graduated from high school in Eloy, where his friends called him JoJo. Not being a citizen, he had no concerns during those Vietnam War years about the military draft. Still, he joined the Marines.
In 2017 his sister Pilar told me, “He loved this country. He believed that it had done many good things for me and my mother. And he had friends who were drafted, and some who enlisted. So he decided to join. He felt like he owed this country much.”
Jimenez was killed in action during a firefight in Vietnam on Aug. 28, 1969. His heroism is outlined in his Medal of Honor Citation, which ends, “He gallantly gave his life for his country.”
HIS country.
I wonder what he would say about that, these days.
Jimenez and Arizona’s 14 other recipients of the Medal of Honor now have their........
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