World War II

By Alyssa Armentrout

When an officer interrupted training to ask, "Does anybody here play the trumpet?" Antonio Campos stepped up and raised his hand.

"I play the trumpet," he replied. Campos ended up getting assigned to one of nearly 500 Army bands that served during World War II.

He performed for the troops and played at Army dances in places like Italy and Egypt. He was the only Latino in his band.

Born on March 26, 1910, Campos was raised in Mexico as an only child. His mother kept house and his father was a farmer, enjoyed playing the violin.

By Nathan Wyman

For Ventura Terrones Campa, the gravity and brutality of World War II often seemed distant to her while living in the Kansas heartland of America. Like many thousands of wives left to raise their children while their husbands were fighting on the battlefields of Europe, North Africa and the South Pacific, Campa's goals were to maintain her household, tend to her daughter and wait to see if her husband, Diego Campa, would be one of the lucky ones who’d come home.

By Elizabeth Wilder

Diego Campa wanted nothing more than to live a simple American life while retaining his Mexican heritage.

Campa’s family and friends held lively celebrations of Mexican culture, but outside this cocoon -- even at church -- he faced constant reminders Mexicans weren’t always considered true Americans by mainstream society.

Campa was born Nov. 3, 1922, in Florence, Kan. His parents, Perfecto and Benita Campa, came to America in 1913 from Irapuato, in Guanajuato, Mexico.

By Francisco H. Cortes

Manuel Cavazos Cadena was only a boy during WWII. But he witnessed the effects the war had in one of the several towns he lived in: San Marcos, Texas.

Two of his brothers were employed because of the war, when an airfield was built, and gravel had to be transported for it. One brother got a job as a maintenance worker and another as a bus boy in the mess hall at the field.

By Ashley Hitson

Without prior understanding of the war or its impact on the world, young Herminia Cadena watched her brother leave home to join the Marines.

"I didn't recognize the importance [of the war] until my brother went in," said Cadena, who was only 9 at the time, unfamiliar with the events that were changing the world.

By Laura Zvonek

As a child, José María Burruel's family lived in a shack on land that didn't belong them: They were, in essence, "squatters." And they were unwelcome. At night, the houses were pelted with stones.

"One morning, we got up, and there was a hole in the tent where the rock had come through the top of the tent and just barely missed my sister's head," Burruel recalled.

The other squatters living on Salt River Valley Project land in Arizona soon put a stop to the discrimination by blocking off both entrances to the territory.

By Xochitl Salazar

On Friday, Oct. 13, 1944, the 79th Infantry Division was in its 23rd day of battle against German forces in the eastern part of Alsace-Lorraine, France.

Eduardo Botello, in a platoon of 27 men, walked slowly and carefully through the town of Embermenil searching for the enemy, when, suddenly, a mortar shell hit 8 feet behind them. The shell broke into many small fragments. Botello felt one wound to the left side of his neck. A second hit, to the back of his left thigh, was discovered later.

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 Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez

Every year at Christmas, José Borja organizes a celebration at a nearby Veterans Administration Hospital, in particular to honor aging Merchant Marines.

The cause of recognizing the Merchant Marines has become Borja's life's work. He has founded an organization called Association of Merchant Marine Veterans. He has written countless letters to public officials and others. He has called and spoken to any group and journalist who might listen. He has written newspaper columns emphasizing the wartime contributions of the Merchant Marines.

By Anne Quach

Frank Bonilla planned to attend college after finishing high school, but within two weeks of graduation, he was drafted into the Army to fight in World War II.