By Therese Glenn
When Maria Sally Salazar illegally enlisted into the Army, she dreamed of traveling the world. She didn’t imagine, however, that her service would lead to six months in the hospital recovering from multiple illnesses and watching the end of World War II from bed.
"The war in '41 woke us up," Salazar said. "Everyone was talking about it. Everyone wanted to go."
By Lynn Maguire
Through the experiences of being a sharecropper, sailor, father, and landowner, Rodolfo "Rudolph" Saenz has learned the most about education, even though he never passed the sixth grade.
Saenz, along with his parents and five siblings, harvested from land that belonged to someone else.
"It wasn't easy, but it was the only way to survive," Saenz said.
By Brandi Richey
If it wasn't for ice cream, Antonio Rico's experience in the Navy during World War II might have been even more tedious. Stationed in Guam in 1945, Rico remembers the long hours pulling guard duty on the island.
"Ice cream saved my life," Rico joked. "It was a lonely time, but the best part was that we could have all the ice cream we wanted."
By Jackie Montes
Calixto Rangel Ramirez's big fear about serving in World War II was being separated from his family. The soldier would go on to fight valiantly in the Battle of the Bulge, as well as be listed as missing for a few days, before finally returning to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley to live a as a prosperous storeowner.
"In war, you see all this suffering on both sides," Ramirez said. "You're hurt and you hurt others. After a while, you're wondering if you're going to make it to the next day. And then you get to a point where you don't care anymore.
By Melissa Drosjack
As an Army entertainer, Ernie Quiroga had a very special audience during World War II – people liberated from concentration camps.
"I entertained persons that were in concentration camps and I always wondered why they were always in a daze," Quiroga said. "You couldn't tell too much, because they were in a daze."
Quiroga recalls playing his accordion, trying to aid their recovery.
"I was playing my accordion and one number that I played was a typical Mexican song -- Besame Mucho," Quiroga said. "They were still in a daze."
Fortino S. Quintana's dream was to be a pilot for the Air Force. Quintana's dream was never realized, however, due to ear problems later attributed to a tumor.
Since he couldn't fly, he did the next best thing: repairing and maintained airplanes as a member of the 810th Air Division at Biggs Air Force Base in El Paso, Texas, a training center for B-17, B-24 and B-29 crews during World War II.
By Jennifer Lindgren
These are some things Virgina Gallardo Nuñez remembers about growing up in South Texas during World War II: curling her hair with the string ties from coffee bags instead of bobby pins because metal was rationed; huddling close to the family radio, listening to war-news updates and Glenn Miller, her favorite singer; and attending midnight Mass on Christmas Eve to pray for her three brothers at war, before having her mother's delicious homemade tamales for Christmas dinner.
By Kelly Tarleton
The thought of failure has never deterred Leopold Rodriguez Moreno from his goals.
Moreno says he was the first Mexican American to be sent to West Virginia as an inspector for the Southern Pacific Railroad Co.
He met Rosa Villagomez, the woman of his dreams, and decided he’d marry her. Six years later, he did.
But Moreno says one of his most important accomplishments is having survived a gunshot wound in the back during the Battle of Luzon in World War II.
By Kaz Edwards
Benito Morales sits perfectly still on his couch, adjusting only his hands, which lie neatly folded in his lap. Arranged next to him are various pieces of memorabilia from World War II, including a Bronze Star he received for heroic achievement in action.
But Morales doesn’t look at himself as a hero, merely one of the lucky few who made it through WWII alive and unscathed.
By Ignacio Laguarda
It was New Year's Eve in 1944 when Soldier First Class Juan Meza discovered Germans had occupied an abandoned college in France -- the same building where he and five other soldiers were resting.
"We were directing the artillery to shoot where we knew they were giving us more battles," Meza said.
He and the other soldiers were there for a week, five or 10 kilometers in front of battle, serving as observers.
