Medals, denied for prejudice, to be belatedly awarded

U.S. President Barack Obama will award the Medal of Honor next month to 24 Army veterans, most of them Hispanic or Jewish, who were passed over for the nation’s highest military award because of their race or ethnicity, the White House has announced.

It is an unusually large number of recipients, only three of whom are still alive.

One of them, Staff Sgt. Melvin Morris, 80, of Cocoa, Fla., said he never questioned the Army’s decision to give him the Distinguished Service Cross instead of the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam in 1969.

“I was proud of what I got,” said Morris, who is being honored for his actions while serving as commander of a strike force near Chi Lang, South Vietnam. “As far as I was concerned, I was highly decorated. I was living and highly decorated.”

But to be given the Medal of Honor after all these years, he said, “You can’t feel but good.”

The new list of medal winners is based on a 12-year effort to investigate historic prejudice against Hispanics and Jews who served in the military. The medal ceremony is scheduled for March 18 at the White House.

All of the recipients had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military award, for service in World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The soldiers will now be given the highest honor “in recognition of the gallantry, intrepidity, and heroism above and beyond the call of duty,” the White House said in a statement.