03/28/2004
By Jim Conley
The young man, one of eight sons and a daughter born of a Native American Texas woman and a Mexican immigrant, now rests eternally among the 39,000 graves at Fort Bliss.
If you look at his headstone, you might not notice anything different. So many names, initials, dates. So many wars. So much heartbreak.
But 24-year-old Marine Staff Sgt. Ambrosio Guillen 's grave holds the remains of someone very special, someone for whom every living soldier, airman, sailor and Marine reserves a special salute -- and a special place in his or her heart.
He is the recipient of the Medal of Honor for giving his life and routing the enemy in Korea in July 1953. And only he and Benito Martinez , a Fort Hancock soldier who also was killed in the Korean War, share a particular honor: They are the only two in the huge cemetery who have been awarded the nation's highest award for bravery.
Guillen's name, which will be on the new veterans home in Northeast El Paso, has been on a school for years, just as Martinez's has. El Paso also points with pride to its only living Medal of Honor recipient, retired Army Col. Joseph C. Rodriguez, who also received the award for bravery in Korea.
But few people seem to have heard of Guillen. His parents and brothers and sisters are all gone. Few remain to tell his story. The clippings in his file in the newspaper's library are as yellowed and as crisp as dried grass in our Chihuahuan desert. But here is what they speak, if you listen:
Ambrosio Guillen went to Aoy Elementary and Bowie High and was a leader in the Bowie Scouts. He was a small, respectful but tough boy who fought in the Golden Gloves.
At 17 years old, in 1947, and needing his parents consent, he enlisted in the Marines. Seven of his eight brothers also did military service.
He was featherweight boxing champ of the Marines while stationed in San Diego. And he was such a superior Marine that he was picked to be a drill instructor.
When the Korean War broke out, he went overseas and was wounded, but didn't even tell his family until after he healed. When he came home on leave, he told his parents it was just a scratch.
His father said later that he had told him, "Pappy, I want to be a Marine the rest of my life."
And when the staff sergeant returned to Korea, that life of service was short but earned him a place in military history. He gave that life for his country and for his fellow Marines. Though mortally wounded, he led the defense of a Marine outpost against two battalions of enemy soldiers, routing them in the process.
A year later, he became only the 48th Marine in history to receive the Medal of Honor -- and the 26th not to survive his act of gallantry. The medal presentation ceremony, made the next year in Washington, D.C., to his parents with other family members in attendance, was a tribute to his bravery.
Almost 18 years later, in 1972, the old Bowie High School was renamed Guillen Middle School, and now, 32 more years later, the city's new state veterans home is to bear his name. How fitting that those who survived their wars will now rest in a home named for a hero who sacrificed himself so that men like them could fight and live another day.
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