Captain Angel F. Espada, U.S. Army, Killed In Action 12 November 1944 [View all]

[Kid Berwyn]

"A man of integrity," he was my grandfather's best friend, machine gunned in a NAZI ambush as he led his men in France. My grandfather, who also was in the Army, and grandmother threw him a going-away party in Panama, where they had been stationed before Capt. Espada shipped out overseas. My father remembered the occasion and the generosity of Capt. Espada, who gave my then-7-year-old dad a basketball as a gift. Decades later, my dad recalled the moment. It was the first time I had seen my father cry.

Some background info on Capt. Espada from University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez, where he had served as an educator -- what we today call an Athletic Director:

"He exercised his vocation as a teacher, day by day in an intimate dialogue with his pupils and colleagues, making them buy into in his idea that scientific knowledge is a way of penetrating human reality," highlighted the profile read by the rector of the UPRM, Dr. Jorge Iván Vélez Arocho, during the unveiling ceremony organized by the Secretary of the Academic Senate, Joanne R. Savino. He added that “as a teacher and as a friend he was an example of humanity, teaching his sports techniques to many schoolchildren. His intellectual and moral attitude had a lot to do with the roots in which his vocation as a physical educator grew."

More in Spanish: https://www.uprm.edu/news/articles/as2006067.html

I look forward to viewing a new documentary about the 65th Infantry Regiment, a unit Puerto Ricans who served together in World War 2 and the Korean War, "The Borinqueneers": https://borinqueneers.com/en_US/soldier/cpt-angel-f-espada/