American War Hero · Korean War · Notice Nearby
Fernando L. Garcia
October 14, 1929 – unaccounted for since September 5, 1952
Born Utuado, Puerto Rico
Loss location: Outpost Bruce, Korea (loss location)
Private First Class, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division; Outpost Bruce, Korea, September 5, 1952
Missing in action — DPAA lists Pfc. Fernando Luis Garcia as Unaccounted For (Deferred), profile a0Jt0000014nwcoEAA. Killed at Outpost Bruce on September 5, 1952; remains not recovered or identified. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Fernando Luis Garcia left Utuado, Puerto Rico, for the Marine Corps and a rifle company in Korea. By September 1952 he was a private first class in Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, holding ground on the outpost line north of the Main Line of Resistance. Outpost Bruce was one of the named hills that ate companies that autumn.
On September 5, 1952, Chinese forces hit the outpost hard. The Medal of Honor citation records that Garcia threw himself on an enemy grenade to save another Marine and was killed. His body could not be recovered in the fight. After the armistice, his remains were not among those identified and returned to U.S. custody.
DPAA's public profile (a0Jt0000014nwcoEAA) still lists him Unaccounted For, analytical category Deferred. He is on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu and on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington. He was the first Puerto Rican Marine awarded the Medal of Honor. This register will keep the outpost, the date, and the open file — and will not pretend a citation is a grave.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1950-007
- Content hash
- 1bb21d94 7faf4607 4f0c78a5 691d1f2a 92749401 b7eea21b fbf232c5 7be8d254
- Base anchor
- 0x5e16cc 5672a507 c3890e7f ce144b6d 6ed60711 d76edef3 393b36bf 84527dd3 0a
Base stores the content hash, publication number, memorial id, and timestamp — not the full obituary text. The complete memorial remains on Notice Nearby. This is not a legal affidavit.