20001776 Club
Clinton awards the Medal of Honor to 22 Asian American veterans of WWII; seven are no longer alive to receive it
Most served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; a 1996 study found their Distinguished Service Crosses were downgraded during the war because of racial discrimination.
Half a century after the war ended, 22 Asian American soldiers finally received the recognition the Army had withheld from them. At a White House ceremony on June 21, 2000, President Clinton awarded the Medal of Honor to soldiers — most of them from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team — whose Distinguished Service Crosses had been downgraded during WWII, a 1996 congressional study concluded, because of racial discrimination. It was the largest single group Medal of Honor award in American history. For many families, the medals arrived decades too late; seven of the twenty-two recipients had already died…
