LANCE CORPORAL
JOSE FRANCISCO JIMENEZ, USMC (DECEASED) 

 

Medal of Honor Citation

Jose Francisco Jimenez, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam in August 1969, was born 20 March 1946, in Mexico City, Mexico. He attended Bonito Juarez School and Jose Maria Morelos School in Morelia, Mexico. He graduated from Red Rock Elementary School, Red Rock, Arizona, in June 1964, and from Santa Cruz Valley Union High School, Eloy, Arizona, in June 1968.

Enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve at Phoenix, Arizona, on 7 June 1968, he was discharged to enlist in the regular Marine Corps, 12 August 1968.  Pvt Jimenez completed recruit training with the 1st Recruit Training Battalion at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California, in October 1968. He was promoted to private first class, 1 October 1968.

Transferred to the Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, California, he underwent individual combat training with Company G, 1st Battalion, 2d Infantry Training Regiment and with the Rifle Training Company of the 2d Infantry Training Regiment, completing the latter in December 1968.

Ordered to the Republic of Vietnam in February 1969, he was assigned duty as a guide and fire team leader with Company K, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He was promoted to lance corporal, 16 June 1969.

While participating in action against the enemy south of DaNang, Quang Nam Province, on 28 August 1969, he was killed in action.  Originally interred in his native Mexico, he was returned to the U.S. and buried with full military honors in Glendale Memorial Park in Glendale, Arizona on 17 January 2017.

His medals and decorations include: the Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal with two bronze stars, the Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.

Vietnam War Medal of Honor