Cavazos, Richard – Fort Hood is now Fort Cavazos – Meet Him
By
John C Abercrombie
While we often hear about the war between the states, that is an incorrect statement. It is a war between the United States and former states that formed a separate country, the Confederate States of America. This nation with a constitution, president, vice president etc. … then took up arms against America firing the first shots in the war yet calling it the war of Northern aggression.
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The cause of the war is often called the battle of states rights. Yes, the right of states to own other human beings and work them for free, making a small number of White slave owners wealthy. The value of goods and products and the value of slaves was greater than the value of all of the factories and railroads in America. Although most profess to be of the Christian faith, they were in no way going to relinquish any of the wealth acquired from the ownership of other human beings and they were not going to treat them kindly.
They took this so far as to name United States of America military bases after the enemy of the United States as they named many facilities after Confederate Generals, some of which resigned from the United States Military Academy to take up arms against their former country.
Only recently, 2023 has the reversal of this shameful practice taken place. One of those bases, the third in size is Fort Hood, named after John Bell Hood, the general who may have lost most of his troops and was finally relieved of duty. The base is now named for Richard Cavazos, the first Latino general to wear four-stars.
Born January 31, 1929, in Kingsville, Texas. He spent his childhood following in the footsteps of his father, a World War I veteran. After the military, his father became a ranch foreman.
Despite a time of intense racism, all of the Cavazos children completed college. Richard Cavazos attended Texas Technological College. That school is now Texas Tech University. He attended on a football scholarship. His football career was interrupted when he broke his leg during his sophomore year.
Not to be denied, he continued his studies on the school’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program and graduated with distinction in 1951. He was commissioned into the army and completed basic officer training at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Henry Lewis Benning was a general in the Confederate States Army and commanded the “Benning’s Brigade” during the American Civil War.
General Cavazos was able to learn from his life experiences and became one of the Army’s finest soldiers. He was noted for his actions, guidance, and loyalty to the soldiers he served with. Retired Lt. Gen. Daniel P Bolger is quoted about Cavazos “Army done right!”
Upon completing his training, 2nd Lt. Cavazos deployed to Korea where he was selected as the platoon leader of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 65th Infantry Regiment. Known as The Borinqueneers, the 65th Infantry had been in Korea since the start of the War and was primarily made up of Soldiers from Puerto Rico, many of whom only spoke Spanish. Cavazos, who was raised bilingual, was a welcome addition after a series of commanders who spoke no Spanish, which resulted in confusion and chaos during battles.
Throughout his time in the Army, Cavazos believed in the moral ascendancy of leaders; the belief that troops needed to have complete trust and faith in their commanding officer to achieve victory. This belief dictated his actions throughout his career, even early on in Korea. Evidence of his determination to achieve moral ascendancy was clear in February 1953. Cavazos, at first leading a few of his men and then going on alone once under attack by enemy fire, captured a wounded enemy soldier who had been left behind after an earlier skirmish. Cavazos was awarded a Silver Star for his bravery.
In June 1953, Cavazos’ leadership abilities were once again on display. He led his men on an assault of the enemy-held Hill 412 as part of a maneuver to cover Outpost Harry, an important defensive position near the hill. They soon came under heavy enemy artillery fire, which resulted in many American casualties. After successfully defending Outpost Harry through three intense hours of fighting, Cavazos received the order to return to friendly lines. Refusing to leave fallen and wounded American Soldiers behind, he repeatedly went back to rescue missing men, despite being wounded himself. His actions led to the Army awarding him the Distinguished Service Cross.
Cavazos rotated back to the United States in the fall of 1953 where he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. Eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was sent to Vietnam in 1967. There he became the commander of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment. His style of leadership was immediately noticed by his troops. “He was an atypical army officer in Vietnam,” remembered Bill Fee, who served under him. “Most battalion commanders stood in the rear or in a helicopter above to direct the battle… [He] had nothing to do with that. He fought on the ground with his troops during battle…he was on the ground with us as we were facing the North Vietnamese Army.”
Another testament to Cavazos’ loyalty to his men and their safety was when he organized a counterattack against enemy forces near Loc Ninh. He once again disregarded his personal safety and led an assault on the enemy’s hillside position, often exposing himself to hostile fire while moving among his troops. He directed such a barrage of artillery fire towards Viet Cong insurgents that the enemy soon fled. This counterattack led him to be awarded a second Distinguished Service Cross.
While Cavazos was certainly a fearless Soldier, he is also remembered as a beloved mentor and teacher. His determination to share what he had learned throughout his career made him influential in the development of the Army’s Battle Command Training Program for high-ranking officers (now Mission Command Training Program). General Colin Powell credited Cavazos for helping him after a less than stellar performance evaluation had Powell reconsidering his Army career. But it was the countless Hispanic soldiers who followed in his footsteps who credit Cavazos for paving the way for their careers. “I told him what he meant to us poor Hispanic kids,” recalled Maj. Gen. Alfred Valenzuela, “his impact as a mentor is probably the greatest impact our army had…we all looked up to him as an American soldier, a Hispanic soldier. He was the guy we wanted to be. If we couldn’t be him, we wanted to be near him and serve with him.”
Richard E. Cavazos retired from the Army in 1984 after 33 years of service. Before his retirement, he made military history when the Army appointed him as the first Hispanic brigadier general in 1976 and then four-star general in 1982. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 88 due to complications from Alzheimer’s. Upon the news of his death, countless Soldiers paid tribute to the man who helped shape today’s Army. “He was such a good soldier,” stated retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan, “…he liked combat soldiers. He was courageous, and they knew it, and they knew he couldn’t ask them to do anything he wouldn’t do with them…he was born that way.”
It is good to see the renaming of military installations that were designated to honor losers of one of the bloodiest wars America has ever been involved in and that is a direct slap in the face of Black and other soldiers. There are many Americans who have been loyal for the duration and have never taken up arms against America.
May progress continue!
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This post is the second of two about the renaming of Fort Hood to Fort Cavazos. To see the first part, click this link.
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The military bases named after confederate losers
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This is a student created video we are showing on KCOL
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America is reversing a decision of naming military bases after enemies of the United States of America. The American Civil War was between two countries, the United States of America and a country formed by states that chose to leave the union and form their own country. They both had constitutions and a President and Vice President along with a capital. Some of the Confederate generals even resigned from the United States military to fight against them.
Those former states took up arms over the question of slave v free. Abraham Lincoln’s objective was to unite the country, realizing that the nation could not survive have slave, half free. Lincoln is on record as saying that if he could unite the country by freeing all the slaves that he would. If he had to free all the slaves, he would do that.
The shame is that many United States military bases have been named for enemies of the United States even throwing it in the face of the many Blacks serving in the military. It is about time the practice ended.