On the front lines: Why Latinos join the military

Jose Velazquez said his mother didn’t want him to become another “statistic” of a city marred with soaring crime rates, double-digit unemployment and limited opportunities.

She also didn’t want him to end up working at a factory, or worse, end up dead on a street corner in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where he grew up. As a way to appease his mother, Velazquez enrolled at a community college right after graduating from high school. However, he ended up dropping out.

“At the time, I was struggling to not be a statistic, but in many ways I already was,” Velazquez is quoted as saying by the Department of Defense. “By 1990, I had already failed out of college and had been hired by a clothing factory, working in what was known as the ‘sweat shop.’”

SEE ALSO: Rudy Martinez: The first Hispanic to be killed in World War II

He quickly realized that’s not the life he wanted to live and sought a way out. His way out came in the form of an Army recruiter who approached him on the street and began speaking to him about joining the military.

“At first, I wasn’t sure,” Velazquez told the DOD. “I didn’t know anything about the military, but the recruiter piqued my interest.”

He ended up joining the military in June 1990. Today, he is still serving and is now the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command public affairs sergeant major. He said the Army “gave me opportunities I couldn’t have even dreamed of.”

Velazquez is one of the Latinos whose stories are being highlighted by the Department of Defense. Since the start of Hispanic Heritage Month on September 15, the department has been releasing profiles of Latinos who are currently serving or have served in the military.

Why Latinos enlist in the military

The number of Latinos serving in the military has increased since a decade ago, when about 125,000 Latinos were active duty military members.

As of August 1, 2014, there were a total of 158,784 Hispanics serving in the military and Latinos compromised 11.8 percent of all active duty military members. That’s according to Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman.

James Rodriguez, a retired Marine Corps first sergeant who served for 21 years, is also being highlighted by the Department of Defense. In an interview with the DOD, he explained why Latinos enlist in the military. He said one of the reasons is because Latinos feel inclined to give back.

“A lot of them come from countries where they’re not citizens of the U.S.,” he told the DOD. “But because of the opportunities the U.S. has provided them and their family members, they felt an obligation to give back to the military and to serve the nation that provided so much for them.”

SEE ALSO: New DOD policy will allow some Dreamers to join the military

Rodriguez said another reason is because Latinos grow up learning how to put others before themselves. “They really take that to heart, and they put the service of their Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen above themselves first,” he said.

In addition, he said many Latinos enlist in the military because they want to challenge themselves, noting that nearly five dozen of the nation’s Medal of Honor recipients since World War II were Latinos.

As for why he enlisted, Rodriguez said he wanted to provide a better life for his family and saw the military as a way to do that. He currently has two daughters who are attending college.

“I really wanted to provide them with the opportunities and resources I didn’t have growing up,” he told the DOD. “And I think that’s important, because during that process, I instilled in them a sense of pride, a sense of character, but also a sense of serving others.”