San Benito

By Melissa Watkins

Carlos Peña's mother, Natividad, used to say the only time Anglos came around their little farm near San Benito, Texas, was when they needed another football player or when there was a war.

The first happened when "Coach McMillan" from a local high school – Peña doesn't remember his first name – approached the family looking for a player. Young Peña's dad, Fermín, thought football was just a bunch of crazy guys beating each other up, but he left the decision to Carlos, the oldest of his six sons. Peña, then 13, said yes.

By Brooke West

Even after 58 years of marriage, Guadalupe "Lupe" Conde still serenades his wife, Maria, on some nights. It was Maria, he says, who restored the sense of peace he lost in battle in North Africa and Italy.

Conde’s life hasn’t been an easy one: His mother died when he was a child, he quit school in the fourth grade to work in the fields and he entered the service before Pearl Harbor, unaware of the impending war. The horrors he witnessed exacted a toll on him, manifesting itself in a "nervous condition" that, at the time, had no treatment.