AZ

Samuel Echeveste never saw himself becoming a decorated war veteran serving the U.S. during a time when he was not accepted by his fellow Americans.

His grew up in Miami, Arizona, where he was born on Christmas Eve 1932 to Aristeo Echeveste and Ramona Padilla. He was one of the youngest among four sisters and three brothers.

Once he graduated from Phoenix Technical High School in June 1951, Echeveste immediately volunteered for the Army.

After basic training, he continued training at Army Field Forces Leaders Course and then was assigned to Korea’s front lines.

By: Voces Staff

Richard Villa is a 27-year old licensed investment broker born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. He is planning a carrer change into law and ultimately wants to be able to prosecute injustice, especially injustice at the hands of police, such as police brutality and deaths that result from police violence. He also wants to help provide public defender assistance to those who can’t afford it, especially to minorities and those who are in poverty.

By: Voces Staff

Tony Pena is 29 years old from Phoenix, Arizona, who currently lives in Portland, Oregon. He works at Squarespace, an internet domain tech company, where he has worked as a senior customer advisor for three years. He also works as an employee resources group co-chair for the Queer Resource Group. He first heard about coronavirus back in October 2019, after reading about this virus in Wuhan, China in the BBC or NPR. He didn’t think it was going to impact his life all that much at first, given how far away it was all happening and spreading. 

By: Voces Staff

Elizabeth Villa is a 51-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of six. She has five sons and one daughter and is also a grandmother to two girls. She has been teaching for 20 years and has lived all over the country, but mostly in Phoenix. Villa discusses the challenges she has faced during the pandemic and the impact COVID-19 has had on her family. As an educator, she also discusses how COVID-19 will affect the education system and what the future holds for teachers and students. 
 

By John Mazzullo

A lifelong athlete and a trailblazing educator and coach, Hector Albert Padilla is no stranger to the discipline, hard work and camaraderie that goes into assembling a strong team.

Padilla was born in Tucson, Arizona, on March 22, 1930, to Manuel and Concepcion Juarez Padilla. His father worked as a boilermaker for Southern Pacific Railroad, and his mother was a seamstress.

By Jessica Goetz, St. Bonaventure University

Ignacio Vindiola was 27 years old when he joined the Army Air Forces and was assigned the job of radio operator aboard bomber planes. He was old enough to understand that those bombs being dropped over cities would hurt innocent civilians as well.

By Kristina Beverly, Cal State Fullerton

When Joseph Velasquez joined the U.S. Navy on April 23, 1968, he received a card that asked where he would want to go if he were deployed.

He could have picked anywhere, but he wanted to be where the action was. Velasquez wanted to go to Vietnam.

"People would ask, 'Why do you want to go there?' Velasquez said. "But it would be like going to a wedding and not seeing the groom. I didn’t want to miss the action."

By Blake Barber, California State University, Fullerton

Looking back on his experience while serving with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam, Ben Rivera evoked three years full of uncertainty about making it home, but also friendships that survived his lifetime.

Rivera was born Feb. 12, 1949, in Tucson, Arizona. His father, Benjamin Rivera, worked installing glass windows, and his mother, Connie Rivera, was a homemaker. Rivera recalled his parents as hard-working; they did the best they could to provide for their six children.

By the Voces Staff

Louis Villalobos Jr., a senior in high school, weighed his options. He didn't have the money to go to college. He could wait to be drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, or he could enlist and hope to be assigned somewhere else, where he could learn a trade.

By the Voces Staff

Gunshots peppered the ground around Cpl. Juan De La Garza. The mud of the rice paddies filled his boots. He did not know where the shots were coming from, just that he had to get his men back to Hill 327, a base camp near Da Nang, Vietnam.

U.S. machine guns would protect the squad once they were close enough to the communication towers on the hill. His radioman became hysterical, but De La Garza could not afford to lose his cool. He had to get his men back safely.