Carmen Garcia Rosado

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Born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, in 1926, Carmen Garcia-Rosado was one of the nine children of Maria Roado and Jesus Garcia, a sugar plantation foreman. She spent her childhood moving around the Caribbean with time spent in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and all across Puerto Rico.

When the U.S. entered World War II, Garcia-Rosado was a schoolteacher living in Caguas, Puerto Rico. She decided to enlist in the U.S. Army after reading a recruitment ad for the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in her local newspaper. 

Garcia-Rosado became one of the 200 Puerto Rican women who traveled to the mainland of the United States to join the WACs in 1944. She completed basic training at Forth Oglethorpe in Georgia and then served in New York City with Company 6, 2nd Battalion, 21st Regiment of the WAC. 

Garcia-Rosado worked briefly as a nurse and then became a mail clerk, responsible for censoring letters in English and Spanish for military secrets. Garcia-Rosado experienced some instances of prejudice as a result of her gender and Puerto Rican heritage, including women being segregated by ethnic background and male soldiers treating the women in the Army as entertainment. Yet, her experience in the WAC was largely positive with plenty of time for lisure activities and comeraderie among the recruits.

After being discharged from the Army in 1946 with the rank of Private First Class, Garcia-Rosado returned to Puerto Rico. There she became an activist and politician, seeking better treatment for Puerto Rican women veterans. She advocated for recognition of the contributions of veterans who served in roles all across the Army, not just on the front lines of combat.

After losing to Velda Gonzalez in a bid for the Puerto Rican Senate in 1980, Garcia-Rosado continued to push for Puerto Rican veterans to receive benefits due to them. 

In 2006, she published her memoir in Spanish based on a compilation of letters and poems that she wrote in tribute to the legacy of Boricua women contributing to the war effort.