Austin

By Chris Nay

Infantryman Reginald Rios watched helplessly in December of 1944 as two fellow Americans fell to enemy fire while U.S. Sherman tanks faced off against German Panzers in northern France.

His only thought: to survive.

Shooting out of foxholes on the front line every day, ducking into foxholes to avoid bullets every night and praying every minute it would end soon -- such was the life of Rios during World War II, as infantryman were the first to the front line.

"You have to do it," he said. "You either do what you're told or be killed."

By Matthew Trana

When Tony Reyna arrived at Normandy Beach on June 9, 1944, three days after the D-Day launch, he couldn't believe his eyes.

"It was real rough," Reyna said. "...People cut in half. Some had no head, some had no legs. It was real bad."

By Cliff Despres

Austin resident Mary Resendez remembers exactly where she was on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor: where she usually was on Sunday -- at Mass.

"We heard [about the bombing] on a Sunday at church," said the 74-year-old Resendez, who was 14 when World War II broke out. "We just prayed to God that it (the war) wouldn't come over here. We knew that the country was in war and there was gonna be a lot of changes."

By Ana Cristina Acosta

For most Americans, walking down the street, entering a restaurant through the front door or going to the grocery store is routine. But for Mary Murillo, 75, who grew up at a time when Mexican Americans suffered blatant discrimination, those simple things weren’t always possible.

By Andy Valdez

The Gil family story is one of overcoming the Great Depression and discrimination, as well as one of service, as three of the four Gil brothers would answer their country's call to arms.

Paul, Narciso and Otis would bear arms and defend their country, leaving their home, parents, younger brother Pete and three sisters: Ruth, Julia and Sally.

By Hannah McIntyre

Elizabeth Garcia, who stayed home and worked while her husband was away serving in World War II, feels that the best career she could have is helping others.

Garcia has spent her life working to take care of other people. Born Elizabeth Ruiz, she and her seven siblings grew up in Austin. Both her parents were from Mexico: her mother, from Monterrey and her father, from Jalisco. The family spoke Spanish all the time.

By Nora Ramirez

For 58 years, the sounds of flying bullets and torpedo explosions have tormented Toby Fuentes.

By Alan K. Davis

From their crippled B-24 bomber, Ladislao "L.C." Castro and the rest of the crew could see the white cliffs of Dover across the English Channel, on March 18, 1944. The fuel gauges read empty. The control cables were severed. And a 4-foot section of the left wing was missing.

The bomber began a slow downward spiral toward occupied France; there was no way to make it back to England.

By Chandler Elise Race

As Manuel Castillo stood on the landing barge off of Omaha Beach in Normandy, the battle was already in full motion on shore. For Castillo, the reality of the landing was not the glorified or stirring depictions of the movies: real lives were being lost. Fathers, brothers and uncles were being killed. The memories of those days in 1943 still affect Castillo today.

By Joanne Rao Sánchez

Eugene Casarez was just 11 years old when he started working for the Surprise Bakery on E. 7th Street in Austin, Texas.

Little did he realize that his four years of making empanadas, pan de huevo and bizcochitos would one day be tapped by the U.S. Army after he was drafted in 1944.

"They looked at my records, and said, 'We need you in the kitchen....'," Casarez said.