Puerto Rican Veterans on Statehood

Puerto Rico has been an important part of U.S. military and defense strategy since the American Revolution. Puerto Ricans volunteer in the U.S. military in large numbers, and veterans in Puerto Rico are proud of their military service.

Naturally, many of these patriots would like to see Puerto Rico admitted as a state. Indeed, while we have not seen scientific polling of Puerto Rican veterans on statehood, organized Puerto Rican veteran leaders and advocacy groups have been a visible pro‑statehood constituency.

Activist organizations

Puerto Rico Pro-Statehood Veterans Commission, one of the many veterans’ organizations supporting statehood for Puerto Rico, has visited Congress to speak up for their preferred status option and to educate legislators and staffers. In the video below, Brigadier General Victor Perez represents this organization. He speaks about the contradiction of fighting for democracy while being unable to vote for their Commander in Chief.

The Borinqueneers Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony National Committee supports full equality and statehood for Puerto Rico. Veterans for Puerto Rico Statehood Task Force and Veteranos con Puerto Rico are also Island-based organizations seeking admission for Puerto Rico. 

Jesus Hernandez Sanchez testified on behalf of the Puerto Rico Veterans Association in a Congressional hearing, “There is panic in Puerto Rico concerning the discovered weakness of our citizenship under the present status of the Commonwealth. This panic has developed like a tornado. The Puerto Rican veterans who have fought and died in the fields of Europe, in the rice paddies of Korea and in the jungle of Vietnam are very woried. The Puerto Rican veterans are brave and disciplined and democracy is in their heart and minds like an ever-growing tree. It is rooted deeply in their culture and way of life…The Puerto Rico Veterans Association oppose any maneuver, political or legal, to pull away Puerto Rico from the United States. The blood shed in the battlefields would be in vain.”

It is not only organizations based in Puerto Rico which take this position. The Vietnam Veterans of America National Board of Directors has unanimously voted to support statehood for Puerto Rico. Other organizations supporting Puerto Rico statehood include Lift a Vet, and the American Latino Veterans. Association.

Jorge E. Pedroza, President of the Vietnam Veterans of America Council of Puerto Rico, testified, “It took many years and the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial Monument in this Capital city and the Memorial Monument in San Juan and many cities around the nation, for the American people to at last extend to the Vietnam Veterans the recognition and remembrance justly deserved. Today, I come before the U.S. Congress to request a similar recognition on behalf of over 200,000 thousand veterans who live in Puerto Rico and the thousands of brave young men and women from this island deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and through all the world who proudly wear the U.S. Armed Forces uniforms. Our request is simple: give us the opportunity to actively participate in the American Democracy.”

Puerto Rican National Guard

The Puerto Rican National Guard is not exactly an activist organization, since it is actually a branch of the U.S. military, but they do actively support statehood. The famed Borinqueneers, when they were disbanded after the Korean War as part of the U.S. Army’s actions to end segregation, became the starting point for the Puerto Rican National Guard.

This organization of active service members holds the view that democracy is not served by Congress’s refusal to take action on the democratically expressed will of the people in the area of statehood.