By Nicole Dreyer
As a ranch hand, Cresencio Lopez didn't get much news about what was happening overseas in World War II. Some neighbors and his cousin had been drafted, and it was hard to get information from them. Later, when Lopez was serving in the Pacific at the tail end of the war, he’d write often to his mother and wife, letting them know where he was and inquiring about his family.
By Amanda Traphagan
World War II gave Beatrice Amado Kissinger a ticket out of her small-town life in southern Arizona and into the big city adventure of serving as a Navy nurse in San Francisco.
When the United States entered the war, Kissinger was a nursing student at a Catholic school -- and tired of the discipline.
By Joanna Watson
Although Joel Hernandez enlisted in the Army only because he couldn't find a job, he looks back on his military service as a blessing that enabled him to lead a fulfilling life.
The son of Mexican Revolution veteran Candelario Castillo Hernandez and Manuela Mendez Ramirez, Hernandez was born July 27, 1917, in Mackay, Texas, the oldest of seven children.
Looking back, Hernandez says his family was poor, and everyone had to constantly work hard.
By Connor Higgins
Agusti¬n Louis Hernandez's life has been one of service: to his country as an engineer/gunner on a B-24, to his community as a firefighter and lawman for 37 years, and to his family as a husband and father.
And as a retiree in Houston at the age of 81, he still struggles today with what is right and what is wrong in war and how it squares with his religious beliefs.
By Christa Desimone
She remembers the telephone call like it was yesterday. A man had rushed into the office where she was working in May of 1946, yelling to her that she had a phone call waiting for her across the street.
Victoria Partida dashed to the phone and heard the voice of the man from whom she’d been waiting to hear for two long years. It was her fiancé, Luis Guerrero, who’d been at war in the South Pacific. He said the words she’d long wanted to hear.
By Lindsay Graham
Raised in Ybor City, a Cuban neighborhood inside Tampa, Fla., Evelio Grillo attended black segregated schools and grew up with black role models.
"Black Cubans were closer to black Americans and white Cubans were closer to white Americans," Grillo said. "We became culturally African American."
He went on to attend Dunbar High, an all-black high school in Washington, D.C., and attended Xavier University, a college for black students in New Orleans, La. He then was drafted into the Army to serve in a "colored" unit in the China-Burma-India Theater.
By Christine Pev
On Dec. 7, 1941, 20-year-old Pablo Gonzales heard on the radio in his hometown of Sabinal, Texas, that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and he immediately wanted to enlist in the military to help defend his country.
His mother, Julia Bocanegra Gonzales, wasn’t pleased. The second of 10 children and the oldest son, he was a significant contributor to the family’s income. Ever since Gonzales and his father, Rafael Gonzales, had worked together on a job mending fences and cutting cedar, they’d labored as a team.
By Emiko Fitzgerald
It wasn't until he went for his physical, after being drafted in October of 1942, that Lufkin, Texas, native Norman Gonzales realized he was blind in one eye. However, that didn’t stop Gonzales from serving in the military and, after the war, traveling around the world supporting cleanup operations.
Gonzales had hoped to join the Marine Corps instead of being drafted into the Army. But the physical exam for the Marines revealed he didn’t have vision in his right eye.
By Christine Powers
"I had a bitter taste in my mouth when I learned both my sons were drafted for Vietnam," said World War II veteran Mike Gomez.
He leaned forward in his seat, paused for a second and then emphasized: "A bitter taste."
Frustrated at the possibility of losing his children and recalling his memories of the European Theater, Gomez, 78, says the draft seemed to be an unavoidable family tradition.
By Ismael Martinez
Moises Garza enjoyed the simple farm life of La Joya, Texas. Born Sept. 4, 1924, he grew up by a river and enjoyed fishing and hunting deer and ducks. Garza remembers huge family gatherings where they cooked food outside. Garza's parents, Jose and Josefina Garza, worked in nearby farms.
"My parents farmed, picked cotton in towns like Victoria," Garza said.
