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 contrib-
uted 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 seg-
regated unit composed primarily of Hispanic sol-
diers. 
(4) In January 1943, 13 months after the at-
tack 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 de-
ploying 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 
participation 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, im-
plementation of this policy had yet to be fully real-
ized when armed conflict broke out on the Korean 
Peninsula in June 1950, and both African-American 
soldiers and Puerto Rican soldiers served in seg-
regated units. 
(7) Brigadier General William W. Harris, who 
served as the Regiment’s commander during the 
early stages of the 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 Pen-
tagon * * * that the Puerto Rican wouldn’t make
a good combat soldier * * * I know my contem-
poraries 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 Air-
borne Division and the United States Marine Corps, 
supported by the Navy and Air Force, thereby dem-
onstrating 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 Depart-
ment of the Army’s headquarters decided to bolster 
the 3rd Infantry Division and, owing in part to the 
65th Infantry Regiment’s outstanding performance 
during Operation PORTREX, it was among the 
units selected for the combat assignment. The deci-
sion 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 Sep-
tember 1950, members of the unit informally de-
cided to call themselves the ‘‘Borinqueneers’’, a term 
derived from the Taı´no word for Puerto Rico mean-
ing ‘‘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 redemp-
tion’’. 
(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, cour-
age and loyalty earned the admiration of many who 
had previously harbored reservations about Puerto 
Rican soldiers based on lack of previous fighting ex-
perience and negative stereotypes, including Briga-
dier General Harris, whose experience eventually led 
him to regard the Regiment as ‘‘the best damn sol-
diers that I had ever seen’’. 
(13) After disembarking at Pusan, South Korea 
in September 1950, the Regiment blocked the escape 
routes of retreating North Korean units and over-
came pockets of resistance. The most significant bat-
tle 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, Commander-in-Chief of the United Na-
tions Command in Korea, to observe that the Regi-
ment 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 Decem-
ber 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 Division dur-
ing the fighting retreat from the Chosin Reservoir to 
the enclave at Hungnam, North Korea, one of the 
greatest withdrawals in modern military history. 
(15) When General MacArthur ordered the 
evacuation of Hungnam in mid-December, the Regi-
ment was instrumental in securing the port, and was 
among the last units—if not the last unit—to depart 
the beachhead on Christmas Eve, suffering signifi-
cant casualties in the process. Under the Regiment’s 
protection, 105,000 troops and 100,000 refugees