Macario García

WOUNDED, HE ASSAULTED TWO MACHINE-GUN POSTS SINGLE-HANDEDLY.

Macario García, also recorded as Marcario García (2 January 1920 to 24 December 1972) was a Mexican-born U.S. Army infantryman and Medal of Honor recipient whose battlefield courage was later matched by his work in his adopted community. His family moved to the United States when he was three and settled in the Sugar Land area of Texas, where they worked on a ranch. As a boy, he often missed school to help his family. He enlisted in the Army on November 11, 1942, while still a Mexican citizen, explaining that he felt an obligation to the country he had long called home.

García served in Normandy with Company B, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, and was wounded there in June 1944. He later rejoined his unit in Germany. On November 27, 1944, near Grosshau, an enemy machine-gun barrage pinned down his company. Acting as a squad leader, he was wounded in the shoulder and foot but refused evacuation. He advanced alone against two machine-gun positions, using grenades and his rifle to silence them; the action helped open the way for the company’s advance. The official Medal of Honor citation records that he continued despite his wounds and that four enemy soldiers were captured. By the time President Harry S. Truman presented his Medal of Honor on 23 August 1945, García was a staff sergeant.

After returning to Texas, García faced racial discrimination, including a widely reported incident in which a restaurant refused to serve him. The case drew public support and became part of the broader Mexican American civil-rights struggle. He became a U.S. citizen in 1947, earned his high-school diploma in 1951, and later worked as a counselor in the Houston Veterans Administration offices. He died after a vehicle accident in 1972 and was buried with full military honors at Houston National Cemetery. He is remembered both for his actions near Grosshau and for the example his postwar life offered to Mexican American veterans and civil-rights advocates.

MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION SUMMARY

The Medal of Honor citation credits García, then a private serving as acting squad leader, with single-handedly attacking two enemy machine-gun emplacements near Grosshau on November 27, 1944. Though wounded, he pressed the attack and helped secure the company’s objective; the citation notes the capture of four prisoners.

Sources: “García, Marcario,” Hispanic Medal of Honor Recipients, U.S. Army Center of Military History; “Soldier, Mexican immigrant earned Medal of Honor during WWII,” The United States Army; “This Month in NCO History—Heroism at Grosshau, Nov. 27, 1944,” NCO Journal, U.S. Army; “Garcia, Marcario,” National Medal of Honor Museum.