Antonia Coello Novello is a Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as 14th Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. Novello was the first woman and first Hispanic to serve as Surgeon General. Novello also served as Commissioner of Health for the State of New York from 1999 to 2006. Novello has received numerous awards including more than fifty honorary degrees, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2000, and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her memoir, Duty Calls: Lessons Learned from an Unexpected Life of Service, was published in 2024.
Major General Orlando Llenza was the second Puerto Rican to reach the rank of Major General in the United States Air Force. Llenza served as commander of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard (PRANG).
Second Lieutenant Carmen Maria Lozano Dumler, RN,, was one of the first Puerto Rican women to become a United States Army officer. During World War II, she served as a nurse and interpreter, and provided support for patients who spoke Spanish. Lozano Dumler has since been featured in promotional and recruitment materials that celebrate diversity in the US military.
The recorded military history of Puerto Rico encompasses the period from the 16th century, when Spanish conquistadores battled native Taínos in the rebellion of 1511, to the present employment of Puerto Ricans in the United States Armed Forces in the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Captain Humbert Roque "Rocky" Versace was a United States Army officer of Puerto Rican–Italian descent who was posthumously awarded the United States' highest military decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his heroic actions while a prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War. He was the first member of the U.S. Army to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions performed in Southeast Asia while in captivity.
Colonel Héctor Andrés Negroni is a United States Air Force officer, historian, senior aerospace defense executive, author, and the first Puerto Rican graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. He was commissioned by Spain's Fifth Centennial Commission to write the "Historia Militar de Puerto Rico".
Two of the least-known roles played by Puerto Rican women and women of Puerto Rican descent have been that of soldier and that of revolutionary. This is a brief account of some the Puerto Rican women who have participated in military actions as members of either a political revolutionary movement or of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Ruben A. Cubero is a retired brigadier general of the United States Air Force who became the first Hispanic graduate of the United States Air Force Academy to be named dean of the faculty of the Air Force Academy.
Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent have participated as members of the United States Armed Forces in the American Civil War and in every conflict which the United States has been involved since World War I. In World War II, more than 65,000 Puerto Rican service members served in the war effort, including the guarding of U.S. military installations in the Caribbean and combat operations in the European and Pacific theatres.
Hispanic Americans, also referred to as Latinos, served in all elements of the American armed forces in the war. They fought in every major American battle in the war. Between 400,000 and 500,000 Hispanic Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, out of a total of 16,000,000, constituting 3.1% to 3.2% of the U.S. Armed Forces. The exact number is unknown as, at the time, Hispanics were not tabulated separately, but were included in the general white population census count. Separate statistics were kept for African Americans and Asian Americans.
Edmund Ernest Garcia was a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy who commanded the destroyer escort USS Sloat during World War II and participated in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and France.
Brigadier General José M. Portela (Ret.),, is a retired officer of the United States Air Force who recently retired from the position of Assistant Adjutant General for Air, which he held while also serving as commander of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard. In 1972, Portela became the youngest C-141 Starlifter aircraft commander and captain at age 22. Portela is also the only reservist ever to serve as director of mobility forces for Bosnia. He is also the first native of Puerto Rico to hold the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Reserve.
Commencing with World War I, Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent have participated as members of the United States Armed Forces in every conflict in which the United States has been involved. Accordingly, thousands of Puerto Ricans served in the Armed Forces of the United States during the Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War. Hundreds of them died, either killed in action (KIA) or while prisoners of war (POW). The Vietnam War started as a Cold War, and escalated into a military conflict that spread to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975.
Hispanics in the United States Air Force can trace their tradition of service back to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), the military aviation arm of the United States Army during and immediately after World War II. The USAAF was the predecessor of the United States Air Force, which was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947, under the National Security Act of 1947. In the U.S., the term Hispanic categorizes any citizen or resident of the United States, of any racial background, of any country, and of any religion, who has at least one ancestor from the people of Spain or is of non-Hispanic origin but has an ancestor from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central or South America, or some other Hispanic origin. The three largest Hispanic groups in the United States are the Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the estimated Hispanic population of the United States is over 50 million, or 16% of the U.S. population, and Hispanics are the nation's largest ethnic minority. The 2010 U.S. census estimate of over 50 million Hispanics in the U.S. does not include the 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico, thereby making the people of Hispanic origin the nation's largest ethnic or race minority as of July 1, 2005.
Brigadier general Maritza Sáenz Ryan is a former United States Army officer, and head of the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy. She was the first woman and first Hispanic West Point graduate to serve as an academic department head.
The recorded history of Puerto Rican women can trace its roots back to the era of the Taíno, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, who inhabited the island that they called Boriken before the arrival of Spaniards. During the Spanish colonization the cultures and customs of the Taíno, Spanish, African and women from non-Hispanic European countries blended into what became the culture and customs of Puerto Rico.
Félix Modesto Conde Falcón was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
Carmen Maria Vazquez Rivera de Figueroa is a Puerto Rican United States Army and Air Force officer and nurse who served in both World War II and the Korean War. She is the widow of Puerto Rican politician, lawyer, medical doctor, and scholar Leopoldo Figueroa.
United States Air Force 
