The Medal of Honor was created during the American Civil War and is the highest military decoration presented by the United States government to a member of its armed forces.
[4] Except for those awarded during the 1996 discrimination study the most recent Asian-American recipient of the Medal of Honor was Rodney Yano, who received it for his actions during the Vietnam War.
Although the conflict was officially declared over on July 4, 1902,[9][10][11] American troops continued hostilities against remnants of the Philippine Army and other resistance groups until 1913, and some historians consider these unofficial extensions part of the war.
[11] During this conflict one Asian American, José Nísperos, received the Medal of Honor for continuing to fight after being seriously wounded.
This global conflict split the majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers.
By the end of the war, only two Asian Americans had been awarded the Medal of Honor, Sergeant Jose Calugas of the Philippine Scouts and Private Sadao S. Munemori of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
[17] A 1996 study commissioned by the United States Army by order of Congress investigated racial discrimination in the awarding of medals during World War II.
[4] After performing a review of the files, the study recommended that several Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who received the Distinguished Service Cross during World War II should be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
[4] On June 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal to 22 Asian Americans, 21 from the aforementioned study,[18] in a ceremony at the White House.
Dennis Fujii is the only living Asian-American Vietnam War veteran to be awarded the Medal of Honor in person.
This with the † indicates that the Medal of Honor was awarded posthumously This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History.