H. R. 1726 
One Hundred Thirteenth Congress 
of the 
United States of America 
AT THE SECOND SESSION 
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday, 
the third day of January, two thousand and fourteen 
An Act 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the 65th Infantry Regiment, known as 
the Borinqueneers. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
(1) In 1898, the United States acquired Puerto Rico in 
the Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-American War 
and, by the following year, Congress had authorized raising 
a unit of volunteer soldiers in the newly acquired territory. 
(2) In May 1917, two months after legislation granting 
United States citizenship to individuals born in Puerto Rico 
was signed into law, and one month after the United States 
entered World War I, the unit was transferred to the Panama 
Canal Zone in part because United States Army policy at the 
time restricted most segregated units to noncombat roles, even 
though the regiment could have contributed to the fighting 
effort. 
(3) In June 1920, the unit was re-designated as the ‘‘65th 
Infantry Regiment, United States Army’’, and served as the 
United States military’s last segregated unit composed pri-
marily of Hispanic soldiers. 
(4) In January 1943, 13 months after the attack on Pearl 
Harbor that marked the entry of the United States into World 
War II, the Regiment again deployed to the Panama Canal 
Zone before deploying overseas in the spring of 1944. 
(5) Despite relatively limited combat service in World War 
II, the Regiment suffered casualties in the course of defending 
against enemy attacks, with individual soldiers earning one 
Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars 
and 90 Purple Hearts. The Regiment received campaign partici-
pation credit for Rome-Arno, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and 
Central Europe. 
(6) Although an executive order issued by President Harry 
S. Truman in July 1948 declared it to be United States policy 
to ensure equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons 
in the armed services without respect to race or color, 
implementation of this policy had yet to be fully realized when 
armed conflict broke out on the Korean Peninsula in June 
1950, and both African-American soldiers and Puerto Rican 
soldiers served in segregated units. 
(7) Brigadier General William W. Harris, who served as 
the Regiment’s commander during the early stages of the
H. R. 1726—2 
Korean War, later recalled that he had initially been reluctant 
to take the position because of ‘‘prejudice’’ within the military 
and ‘‘the feeling of the officers and even the brass of the 
Pentagon * * * that the Puerto Rican wouldn’t make a good 
combat soldier * * * I know my contemporaries felt that way 
and, in all honesty, I must admit that at the time I had 
the same feeling * * * that the Puerto Rican was a rum 
and Coca-Cola soldier.’’. 
(8) One of the first opportunities the Regiment had to 
prove its combat worthiness arose on the eve of the Korean 
War during Operation PORTREX, one of the largest military 
exercises that had been conducted up until that point, where 
the Regiment distinguished itself by repelling an offensive con-
sisting of over 32,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division 
and the United States Marine Corps, supported by the Navy 
and Air Force, thereby demonstrating that the Regiment could 
hold its own against some of the best-trained forces in the 
United States military. 
(9) In August 1950, with the United States Army’s situation 
in Korea deteriorating, the Department of the Army’s head-
quarters decided to bolster the 3rd Infantry Division and, owing 
in part to the 65th Infantry Regiment’s outstanding perform-
ance during Operation PORTREX, it was among the units 
selected for the combat assignment. The decision to send the 
Regiment to Korea and attach it to the 3rd Infantry Division 
was a landmark change in the United States military’s racial 
and ethnic policy. 
(10) As the Regiment sailed to Asia in September 1950, 
members of the unit informally decided to call themselves the 
‘‘Borinqueneers’’, a term derived from the Taı´no word for Puerto 
Rico meaning ‘‘land of the brave lord’’. 
(11) The story of the 65th Infantry Regiment during the 
Korean War has been aptly described as ‘‘one of pride, courage, 
heartbreak, and redemption’’. 
(12) Fighting as a segregated unit from 1950 to 1952, 
the Regiment participated in some of the fiercest battles of 
the war, and its toughness, courage and loyalty earned the 
admiration of many who had previously harbored reservations 
about Puerto Rican soldiers based on lack of previous fighting 
experience and negative stereotypes, including Brigadier Gen-
eral Harris, whose experience eventually led him to regard 
the Regiment as ‘‘the best damn soldiers that I had ever seen’’. 
(13) After disembarking at Pusan, South Korea in Sep-
tember 1950, the Regiment blocked the escape routes of 
retreating North Korean units and overcame pockets of resist-
ance. The most significant battle took place near Yongam- 
ni in October when the Regiment routed a force of 400 enemy 
troops. By the end of the month, the Regiment had taken 
921 prisoners while killing or wounding more than 600 enemy 
soldiers. Its success led General Douglas MacArthur, Com-
mander-in-Chief of the United Nations Command in Korea, 
to observe that the Regiment was ‘‘showing magnificent ability 
and courage in field operations’’. 
(14) The Regiment landed on the eastern coast of North 
Korea in early November 1950. In December 1950, following 
China’s intervention in the war, the Regiment engaged in a 
series of fierce battles to cover the rear guard of the 1st Marine