Courage & valor
D-Day veteran Haro persevered in war, later advocated for vets
Merriam-Webster defines courage as perseverance in the face of fear. At age 22, Mexican-born Jesse Haro found himself in the grips of fear as he prepared to risk his life for his adopted country on D-Day 1944.
“We were so scared some of us had to throw our shorts away,” Haro recalled 70 years later while recounting the minutes before he and his tank crew stormed ashore Omaha Beach.
Fear gave way to valor for Haro and the thousands U.S. service members who fought and died in World War II.
“He said it was his duty,” David Haro said of his father, who after the war returned to Milwaukee to become a machinist and a father. He and his wife, Cecelia, raised six children.
He died Oct. 4 in Modesto, Calif., at age 95.
“My father was very stern with us, and he finally told me why when I was much older,” David Haro recalled.
“His own father died when he was very young, so he basically had to become the man of the house. He saw how stern the fathers in the old neighborhood were with their kids, so he imitated them, and raised us the same way.”
The “old neighborhood” was Walker’s Point on Milwaukee’s near south side, where Haro’s father, Luciano, ran a small grocery store af-
ter he and his wife, Norberta, moved north from Tepechitlán, Zacatecas, Mexico, in the 1920s.
The Haros were among a group known as Los Primeros — the first wave of Mexican immigrants to move to the city.
When the Great Depression cost Luciano his small grocery store, like many other Mexican immigrants he toiled in the meat packing plants of the Menomonee Valley. That work cost him his life in an industrial accident, placing the burden of raising his five youngest children on young Jesse.
Jesse Haro delivered newspapers to help his family survive before graduating from Boys’ Technical High School and entering the U.S. Army after the beginning of World War II.
“He wasn’t even a citizen yet,” David Haro said, recounting a story on how Army officials speeded up the process for his father to serve.
Haro fought with the Army’s 3rd Armored Division in the battle of Normandy, Northern France, the Ardennes, the Rhineland and Central Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge.
He earned numerous commendations, including a Silver Battle Star, four Overseas Service Bars and a World War II Victory Medal.
In 2015, he received the “French Knight of the Legion of Honor Medal,” the highest award from the French government to U.S. veterans who fought in France during World War II.
After the war, Haro returned to Milwaukee, becoming a machinist at Square D Co., where he worked for 37 years before retiring, his son said.
He also served in the U.S. Army Reserve and stayed active in veterans’ issues.
He was an American Legion member for more than 70 years, serving as commander of the David Valdes Post 529 in Milwaukee and the American GI Forum, the nation’s largest congressionally chartered Hispanic veterans organization.
“Jesse and others like him brought me and other Vietnam veterans into the fold, as they knew someone had to carry on for them,” said Fernando H. Rodriguez, state secretary of the American GI ForumWisconsin and a member of the David Valdes post.
“He made sure that the voice of Latino veterans was heard.”
“Jesse and others like him brought me and other Vietnam veterans into the fold, as they knew someone had to carry on for them. ... He made sure that the voice of Latino veterans was heard.” FERNANDO H. RODRIGUEZ STATE SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN GI FORUM-WISCONSIN