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Lenny Kravitz’s Hero Uncle and Other Lesser Known American Heroes

Khalid Elhassan August 18, 2020 35 min

American Revolutionary War - United States — The British surrender at Yorktown. Library of Congress

29. Joining the US Army to Avoid Deportation

During a trip from his workplace in the beet farm to nearby Denver, Marcelino Serna was detained by federal enforcement authorities who were checking the legal status of men of draft age. He ended up locked up in a local jail while officials tried to verify his immigration status and eligibility for the draft.

Serna had no legal status, so after seven days behind bars, he got tired of waiting. To avoid getting deported back to Mexico, he volunteered to enlist in the US Army. Despite hardly speaking any English, he managed to make it through basic training.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.