Austin

By Jane O’Brien

Fourteen-year-old Alberto Bosquez grabbed his stack of newspapers in 1941, headed to downtown San Antonio and began dealing them out. "Extra! Extra!" he called out, "Japan bombs Pearl Harbor!"

By Rajesh Reddy

In the spring of 1945, 16-year-old Rodolfo “Rudy” Alaniz's older brother Ricardo, a rifleman with the 8th Infantry Division, was killed in Germany, an event that would alter young Alaniz’s life.

"I presented my brother's flag to my mother," said Alaniz, about Ricardo's burial. "That was the saddest part of my life."

By Yvonne Lim

Gloria Araguz Alaniz began her role as the family caregiver when her mother passed away, leaving 15-year-old Alaniz to care for her father and eight siblings.

As her mother, Anita Flores Araguz, lay dying from an aneurysm, she asked her teenage daughter to make sure her sickly baby brother, 5-month-old Arturo, get baptized right away.

It was understood that as the oldest girl, young Alaniz would be responsible for her family's care. A cousin stepped in to make arrangements for the baby's baptism and the child was baptized after Anita died June 10, 1942.

By Lori Slaughenhoupt

Gregoria Esquivel was strongly influenced by her uncles who served in the military during World War II. Their patriotism and involvement in the war effort helped shape her perspective on life when she was only a child.

One of her uncles was wounded in a battle in Luxembourg and sent to a hospital in Texas. The visits to his bedside, seeing the numerous men wounded in the hospital, would have a lifelong impact on her, leading her to pursue a career in nursing.

By Laura Radloff

As a young man, Julius Casarez didn’t know exactly what he was getting himself into when he enlisted in the Army.

"My brother told me that if I enlisted sooner rather than later, I could pick where I wanted to be stationed," said Casarez, 82, who now lives with his wife, Trinity Castruita Casarez, in Austin, Texas.

Little did he know that when he enlisted, the Japanese were only a few days away from bombing Pearl Harbor, and he’d be forced to go where the Army told him to go.

By Tammi Grais

Martha Ortega Vidaurri learned at a young age the hardships that life could serve up: During World War II, all five of her brothers and her husband would serve in the country's defense.

Her brothers; Samuel, Daniel, Benjamin, Abel, Ruben and Eliseo; were spread throughout Europe -- in France, England, Italy and Germany; in North Africa; and in the Pacific -- the Philippines, Japan and Korea. Her husband, Edelmiro, was stationed in Iceland.

By Michael Taylor

During the span of a 27-year military career, Edelmiro Vidaurri has worked on the aircraft used to fight three wars. In the course of those conflicts, he saw change both in the technology of aircraft and the attitudes of his fellow soldiers.

By Robert Mayer

Refusing to be segregated or treated as second-class citizens, Oswaldo Ramirez and about 15 of his Mission, Texas, schoolmates boycotted the new junior high school built solely for Spanish-speaking students.

By Raquel C. Garza

On June 6, 1944, Lillian Marguerite Ramirez was baking gingerbread men as a surprise for a neighbor's child.

Ramirez's husband, Oswaldo, meanwhile, was thousands of miles away, serving on the front lines on Omaha Beach.

Her brother-in-law, Rafael Ramirez, had come to visit her in her parents’ home in Biloxi, Miss., a day earlier. He arrived the night before D-Day, or Operation Overlord, was scheduled to take place.

"All that day, they kept turning off the radio when I would walk in," Ramirez said.

By Sandra Ibarra

Miguel Pineda recalls Gen. Douglas MacArthur trying to inspire him and the other inexperienced soldiers upon their arrival in Brisbane, Australia. Pineda, 21 at the time, remembers MacArthur saying: "You kill him or he'll kill you!"

That was the defining moment when the reality and hardship of war and death hit this young man.