TX

By In-Young Kim

Francisco Guerra still doesn't understand why people had to kill each other during World War II. And he says he doesn’t believe in wars anymore.

Guerra remembers the harrowing days he spent on Omaha Beach during the 1944 Normandy campaign. He recalls the high casualties as United States forces took Normandy. He witnessed intense combat, as German gunfire from enemy positions on high ground ripped American units apart.

One memory vividly sticks with him to this day -- the day a fellow soldier was struck by German machine-gun fire.

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 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. 

By Melanie Jarrett

By the time World War II ended, Guadalupe Garza had traveled hostile roads through French Morocco, Spanish Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, Gibraltar, Scotland, England, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany and Austria.

In all, he experienced 480 days of combat.

By Sierra Brasher

Saragosa A. Garcia always marched to the beat of a different drum.

And his ability to play music, to change the tempo of his life, along with the assurance from carrying a treasured Holy Bible and his mother's prayers, may have helped him through tough times in World War II and in a segregated Texas.

Born Oct. 22, 1922, in Corpus Christi, Texas, to a family of musicians, Garcia says he was destined to play the drums.

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 Edna P. Carmona,

For 10 days in 1944, Margarito Correa and nine of his fellow soldiers were lost -- tired and hungry and unsure where to go or what to do. But even in the midst of the chaos, Correa held on to hope, believing his mother's prayers would pull him through.

"In the letters I sent my mother, I asked her to pray day and night for me and I know that it helped," he said.

Still, times were so rough that he was sure he wouldn’t survive.

By Rebecca Eng

With 18 pairs of boots and 15 cowboy hats, Seventy-eight-year-old Pablo Cavazos is a walking specimen of Texas pride.

His advice to young people is simple: Get a good start in the military.

"If they go into the military, they'll learn a lot of things there," Cavazos said.

By Nicolas Martinez

When the government called Hilario Cavazos Jr. to war in October of 1943, he was in his senior year at Laredo's Martin High School, working his way toward college. He asked for an extension to finish high school, but to no avail -- the need for capable men was too great during World War II.

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.