20. A Hero in Peacetime
After recovering from his wounds, Marcelino Serna returned to America and settled in Texas, as that state’s most decorated WWI hero. He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1924, then got married and raised a family in El Paso, where he got a job in a packing company.
He eventually became a plumber in El Paso’s William Beaumont Army Medical Center, and worked there until his retirement in 1960. He died in 1992 at age 95, and was buried in El Paso’s Fort Bliss National Cemetery. In 1995, legislation was introduced in Congress, requesting that Serna finally be awarded a Medal of Honor. The bill was not passed, and to date, efforts to award Serna his just dues have gone nowhere.