​Juan (John) Benavente at Rwanda National Park (2014)
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Juan (John) Cruz Benavente was born on August 27, 1937. He survived the Japanese occupation of Guam (1941-44). He attended Guam High School as well as the University of Guam. Benavente enlisted in the US Army on June 10, 1955 and retired on April 2, 1982. His long career in the military included: 1sg US army; Senior infantry advisor, Army Reserve/ Guard; US Army recruiter; JRTOC instructor Votec/ George Washington High School in Guam; US Army senior drill sergeant; Small arms repair specialist; tours of duty, Korea, Vietnam, and Germany; Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, Hawai‘i; and Fort Ord in Monterey, California. Today, he is active in the movement for Guam’s independence.
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John (Juan) Cruz Benavente:
First I want to cover WWII. I was a young man, a young boy, during World War II. I was born before the war. So we’re octogenarian. On my business card you can see my home in 1944. There’s seven of us people living in that small canvas cover. There were no mattresses or anything like that so we were sleeping on mats on the ground. And I would remain in that camp for nearly a year before I would finally move to the village of Dededo. So that’s my WWII story. Fast forward. By 1955, I would be in the army. In the summer of ’55 I enlisted in the US Army. And, I had many duties before I entered Vietnam in ’68. I spent one tour in Vietnam. And Vietnam is a very painful experience for my family. I lost a first cousin, I have an uncle that lost a leg, I have a first cousin that lost a leg, and at least a dozen people from my family who were wounded. So Vietnam is a very painful experience in terms of what happened to my family. In 1969, there’s three of us in my family that were in Vietnam. One was in artillery, the two of us were in an infantry unit. We’re very lucky, none of us got wounded. After Vietnam, I went back to the training center, and I was at the training center for three years, so I didn’t go back to Vietnam again. And then I ventured into recruiting. That was a painful experience also. And in 1982, I retired. I was here during the time that the Vietnamese were being flown in from Vietnam, because I was teaching at the high school junior ROTC. So I was able to observe Operation New Life. |
Juan (John) Benavente in Vietnam (1968) with his two brothers (left-to-right: Jesus, Pete, John)
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In the 1990s, I attended the University of Guam and I took a semester on Vietnamese history.
So my Vietnam tour, seeing the refugees come to Guam, and taking a semester of Vietnamese history gave me kind of a rounded view of what happened to us as soldiers, and why we were there. It was a very good class. It was excellent. And my professor was an expert on Southeast Asian history, so it was a very interesting experience.
It was not the Vietnam War that triggered my activism. I think inherently, most of us that are American soldiers from Guam, hidden inside of is this business of being a soldier in the American army, but you’re so far removed from America, ok? And then when you look at the Organic Act, ok? When they passed the Organic Act, that Organic Act says we are an unincorporated territory of the United States. Those two words, the “un” and “in” are negative words in the English language. “In” is “incompetent,” and “un” is “unwanted.” So, we are both being labeled as “incompetent” and “unwanted,” because they use that double whammy on us. Unincorporated! And so we always understood that. Especially as we grew older, we even questioned that more seriously. And where are we headed? But for the CHamoru men that served in Vietnam, there is over 6,000 of us, we have paid the price. There should never be any question about how loyal are we as a people. The loyalty should never be a question. But the question of, asking a fundamental question about governance, independence, self-governance, that’s a very valid question. And any intelligent person can ask that fundamental question. Because we’re being governed from Washington DC, we have no say on what happens to us. Our citizenship can be taken away as an act of Congress. In 1950, my entire family became citizens of the United States. My grandparents are basically illiterate. But with the snap of a pen, they became citizens of the US, and they didn’t know a damn thing about the Constitution. No knowledge of that. My mom had no knowledge of American history. Now suddenly she’s a citizen of the US, by virtue of an act of Congress.
So my Vietnam tour, seeing the refugees come to Guam, and taking a semester of Vietnamese history gave me kind of a rounded view of what happened to us as soldiers, and why we were there. It was a very good class. It was excellent. And my professor was an expert on Southeast Asian history, so it was a very interesting experience.
It was not the Vietnam War that triggered my activism. I think inherently, most of us that are American soldiers from Guam, hidden inside of is this business of being a soldier in the American army, but you’re so far removed from America, ok? And then when you look at the Organic Act, ok? When they passed the Organic Act, that Organic Act says we are an unincorporated territory of the United States. Those two words, the “un” and “in” are negative words in the English language. “In” is “incompetent,” and “un” is “unwanted.” So, we are both being labeled as “incompetent” and “unwanted,” because they use that double whammy on us. Unincorporated! And so we always understood that. Especially as we grew older, we even questioned that more seriously. And where are we headed? But for the CHamoru men that served in Vietnam, there is over 6,000 of us, we have paid the price. There should never be any question about how loyal are we as a people. The loyalty should never be a question. But the question of, asking a fundamental question about governance, independence, self-governance, that’s a very valid question. And any intelligent person can ask that fundamental question. Because we’re being governed from Washington DC, we have no say on what happens to us. Our citizenship can be taken away as an act of Congress. In 1950, my entire family became citizens of the United States. My grandparents are basically illiterate. But with the snap of a pen, they became citizens of the US, and they didn’t know a damn thing about the Constitution. No knowledge of that. My mom had no knowledge of American history. Now suddenly she’s a citizen of the US, by virtue of an act of Congress.