page_title: Tony Santiago
section_title: Military historian
hierarchical_section_title: Tony Santiago / Military historian
caption_attribution_description: English: The Santiago's and the Clinton's. Picture taken in the Capitol building by "my" son with "my" camara. Permission sent to OTRS by my son
context_page_description: Antonio Santiago Rodríguez — better known as Tony the Marine or as Tony Santiago — is a United States Marine veteran, writer, and military historian from New York City, New York, focused mostly on the military history of Puerto Rico and its service members.
  For his work, Santiago was recognized by the 23rd Senate of Puerto Rico for being "one of the main contributors of content related to Puerto Rico in the open online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia". The Senate also recognized him as one of the main writers on subjects which relate to Puerto Rico, and an important historian of the Puerto Rican military experience. According to Phoebe Ayers, member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, this may be the first time that the English Wikipedia has been mentioned in a parliamentary or congressional resolution of this type. She also stated that it is probably the first time that contributions to English Wikipedia have been cited in a formal governmental award, too.
context_section_description: In 1990, Santiago moved to Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife and children. At this point he reflected, "the only role models and heroes for Latino children were El Zorro, the Cisco Kid and Speedy Gonzales and," he said, "school textbooks failed to mention the many contributions that Latinos had made to the formation of our country [the United States]."
  In response, Santiago began publishing a series of short articles about the contributions that Puerto Ricans had made to the American society. He is the editor of the Puerto Rican Military History Channel of the monthly internet magazine El Boricua, a staff writer in the internet magazine Somos Primos and the official historian of the Association of Naval Services Officers (ANSO).
  His early published work focused on military history, but later he expanded his research and documentation to include many other facets of the Puerto Rican life experience.
  One email received from a reader of his articles led to Santiago serving to bridge two families that had lost track of each other for many years. It happened in 2007, when Santiago united U.S. Army veteran William W. Kouts with the family of the late David M. Gonzalez. Gonzalez had sacrificed his life to save Kouts during World War II. According to Beatrice Gonzales, David's daughter-in-law: "We feel so much peace because David's father died to save a very good man who lived a good life."" Maribeth Kouts stated: "We owe so much to Mr. Santiago," On May 27, 2007, Santiago was featured in The Arizona Republic under the headlines  “A medal, a debt, both of honor”.
  On April 2010, Santiago discovered and wrote about Lt. Augusto Rodriguez a Puerto Rican who served in the American Civil War. It was the first time that a link in the American Civil War was made between Puerto Rico and the United States. Rodriguez was thus the first known Puerto Rican veteran of the United States Armed Forces. The significance of this discovery is that, until then, it was believed that Puerto Ricans had not served in the United States military prior to World War I. Puerto Rico's Secretary of State, Kenneth D. McClintock, named Santiago "Puerto Rico's foremost military historian."
  Santiago is among the people who were interviewed and who are featured in the documentary On Two Fronts: Latinos & Vietnam; directed and produced by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Mylene Moreno. The documentary, which aired on PBS in September 22, 2015, examines the Latino experience during the Vietnam War. He was interviewed, together with fellow veteran Oscar Urrea, by PBS Horizante host Jose Cardenas and Univision newscaster Jorge Valenzuela, where he expressed his personal experiences, prior to the showing of the documentary.
caption: (L-R) President of the Puerto Rican Senate Kenneth McClintock, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Antonio, Milagros, Chelsea Clinton and former President of the U.S. Bill Clinton
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