Richard E. Cavazos

• Born: January 31, 1929
• Birthplace: Kingsville, Texas
• Died: October 29, 2017
• Place of death: San Antonio, Texas

American military leader

After distinguishing himself as a resourceful and courageous soldier during the Korean War, Cavazos went on to make military history twice: In 1976, he became the first Latino brigadier general in the United States Army, and in 1982, he was the first Latino to be promoted to the rank of four-star general.

Early Life

Richard Edward Cavazos was born to a farming and ranching couple, Lauro Cavazos Sr. and Tomasa Quintanilla Cavazos. His older brother, Lauro Jr., would later become secretary of education under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. The Cavazos family were what are called in South Texas Kineños, workers on the legendary King Ranch. At the time of the brothers’ childhood, Latinos and Anglos often were segregated in South Texas society, and discrimination against people of Mexican descent was prevalent.

After high school, Cavazos participated in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at North Texas Agricultural College near Dallas, a school that later became the University of Texas at Arlington. Afterward, he attended Texas Technological College (later Texas Tech University) in Lubbock. At Texas Technological College, Cavazos again was active in ROTC and played football. He graduated in 1951 with a bachelor of science degree in geology.

By this time, Cavazos had chosen to pursue a career in the United States military. After his college graduation, his participation in ROTC earned him a commission as a second lieutenant in the US Army. Later that year, he reported to Fort Benning in Georgia to undergo basic training, followed immediately by further training in the Army Airborne School. Upon completion of this training, he was assigned to the Sixty-fifth Infantry and was sent to fight in the Korean War.

Life’s Work

The Sixty-fifth Infantry has become an important part of Latino history: It was composed almost entirely of Latinos, most of them of Puerto Rican descent, and the soldiers in the unit dubbed themselves “the Borinqueneers” in honor of an indigenous people in Puerto Rico. Cavazos quickly rose to positions of authority within the unit, first as platoon leader of Company E and then later as company commander. The valor and bravery of the Borinqueneers became legendary, and Cavazos became one of the unit’s most illustrious members. Perhaps his most famous exploit during the Korean War took place in February 1953: Leading a small band of fellow soldiers, he risked heavy enemy fire to take a wounded North Korean soldier prisoner. This act of bravery earned Cavazos a Silver Star. Before the war ended, he won another high military honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, in June 1953.

When the Korean War ended, Cavazos embarked on a wide array of endeavors. He was an executive officer in the Army’s First Armored Division and later went to West Germany to work in the European headquarters of the US Army as an operations officer. In the late 1950s, he worked as a teacher and trainer in the ROTC program of his alma mater, Texas Technological College. Most of the first half of the 1960s saw Cavazos attending a number of prestigious officers’ training schools, including the British Army Staff College and the United States Armed Forces Staff College. These experiences prepared him for the next armed conflict in which he would fight: the war in Vietnam.

Having attained the rank of lieutenant colonel, Cavazos was given command of the Eighteenth Infantry’s First Battalion in early 1967. During his tour of duty in Vietnam, Cavazos’s most notable encounter with the enemy came in the intense forty-eight-hour Battle of Loc Ninh in October 1967. As his unit engaged the Viet Cong on an old rubber-tree plantation near the Cambodian border, Cavazos led his men with such skill and diligence that the Viet Cong ended up fleeing not only the battlefield but also the fortified hillside trenches into which they had tried to escape. For this victory, he received his second Distinguished Service Cross.

After Vietnam, Cavazos continued his career. During the first half of the 1970s, he served as, among other things, a chief of the Offense Section of the Department of Division Operations at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas; a defense attaché to Mexico; and an assistant deputy director of operations in the Pentagon. In 1976, Cavazos became the first Latino to achieve the rank of brigadier general. He was quickly assigned thereafter a string of prestigious commands, ultimately becoming head of the Ninth Infantry Division. In 1982, Cavazos took on his final duty: head of the US Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). He held this post until June 17, 1984, when he retired to San Antonio, Texas.

In his later years, Cavazos reportedly struggled with Alzheimer's disease and resided at San Antonio's Army Residence Community. He died there on October 29, 2017, at the age of eighty-eight.

Significance

Cavazos’s nearly thirty-five years of service in the US Army are illustrious by any standard: He served in almost every conflict in which the United States became involved from the early 1950s to the mid 1980s—from the Korean War to the invasion of Grenada in the Caribbean. In addition to his two Distinguished Service Crosses and the Silver Star, Cavazos also garnered five Bronze Stars, two Legion of Merit awards, and the Purple Heart. Furthermore, he was a significant figure in Latino history as the first Latino four-star general. Additionally, he had been included in the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame and Fort Leavenworth's Command and General Staff College Hall of Fame.

Bibliography

Antal, John F. Armor Attacks—the Tank Platoon: An Interactive Exercise in Small-Unit Tactics and Leadership. Foreword by Richard Cavazos. Presidio Press, 1991. Cavazos’s foreword offers valuable insight into his approach to battle and leadership.

Cavazos, Lauro F. A Kineño Remembers: From the King Ranch to the White House. Texas A&M UP, 2006. The best source for information on the childhoods of both of the Cavazos brothers.

"History-Making General Cavazos Dies." Association of the United States Army, 31 Oct. 2017, www.ausa.org/news/history-making-general-cavazos-dies. Accessed 12 Apr. 2018.

Schwarzkopf, Norman. It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Bantam, 1992. Numerous references indicate Schwarzkopf’s admiration and respect for his former superior, Cavazos, under whom he served in the Ninth Infantry Division.

Villahermosa, Gilberto N. Honor and Fidelity: The Sixty-fifth Infantry in Korea, 1950–1953. Center of Military History, US Army, 2009. Definitive group biography of the company of Latino warriors in which Cavazos experienced some of his early military successes.