I knew Fort Cavazos' Namesake - I wish you could have met him
General Richard Cavazos has now posthumously been awarded the Medal of Honor
(The Medal of Honor has been posthumously awarded to General Richard Cavazos. This profile was originally published on the Newsbreak mobile platform in August of 2023)
One of the benefits of being a journalist is that you meet important people at important times in their lives. So it was that I met General Richard Cavazos as he assumed command of (then) Fort Hood in 1980.
General Cavazos was something of a legend by then. He was a four-star general in the United States Army. Six years earlier he had become the first Hispanic to reach the rank of brigadier general.
General Cavazos was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice, once as a First Lieutenant in the Korean War and again as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Vietnam War. The accounts of his heroism which led to the medals read more like a description of actions worthy of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but that is another discussion for another time.
I was credentialed to cover the assumption of his command of what was then Fort Hood because I had grown up in his hometown of Kingsville. General Cavazos had grown up there on the King Ranch, the son of a lowly Kineño cowhand (Lauro Senior) - who eventually became a ranch foreman, defended the ranch from raiding Mexican bandits, and later fought during World War I as an artillery battery First Sergeant.
Basically, the whole family was made up of badasses (and I say that in a respectful way).
His older brother. Lauro (Junior), went on to become President of Texas Tech University and U.S. Secretary of Education. Like his younger brother, Richard, he served in the U.S. Army in an infantry unit during the last days of World War Two.
A younger brother, Bobby, became foreman of the Laureles Division of the King Ranch and a Commissioner of the County in which they grew up. Like all the Cavazos brothers he attended their beloved Texas Tech University, where he was an All-American football player and was named "Mr. Texas Tech University." He was a star player in a Texas Tech season that finished 11-1 and won the 1954 Gator Bowl against Auburn. After graduation, he was deployed to Korea as an officer in the U.S. Army (like his father and older brothers before him) to satisfy his ROTC commitments at Texas Tech. He died at 82 on the Santa Gertrudis Division of the King Ranch, where he lived out the last years of his life.
But this story is about their brother, Richard - who earned those Distinguished Service Crosses in both Korea and Vietnam as well as a Silver Star in Korea.
The man I met at what was then Fort Hood (and could not have imagined that the post would be renamed for him in 2023) was both humble and singularly focused on the well-being of his troops.
I did not know it then, but it is clear now that I was in the presence of a historic figure who lived a quiet life of service.
General Cavazos passed away at the age of 88 in San Antonio. He could have been buried with other generals in Arlington National Cemetery but chose to be laid to rest among fellow soldiers in a simple grave at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in his beloved state of Texas.
I wish you could have met him.
(Postscript: As I wrote in this article, I have long felt that General Cavazos should have been awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions under fire while in command of soldiers under intense fire during a three-hour battle to defend “Outpost Harry” in Korea in June 1953 and again during a battle in Loc Ninh, Vietnam for which he earned his second Distinguished Service Cross. I’ll have more to say about this in an updated original article I am working on now.)
Feel free to share your opinion in the comments on this article,
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
