By Amanda Crane
Ruperto Soto Juarez, of Norwalk, Ca., has not had an easy life: he was orphaned as an adolescent; he quit school as a child, he fibbed about his age in order to join the Navy and serve his country in WWII. He has been a political activist, fighting for a fairer world. When his wife was terminally ill, he stayed by her bedside, holding her hand.
His is the story of an everyday hero.
By Jacob Collazo
At the onset of the Korean War in 1952, Julius V. Joseph, a veteran of World War I and II called his local recruiting office to volunteer his service. The recruiter asked Joseph if he had ever served in the military, Joseph answered that he had and that he reached the rank of captain as a combat medic. The recruiter moved on to other question until eventually he asked Joseph for his date of birth, to which he replied May 21, 1902.
By Liliana Martinez
When Ed Idar was a teenager living in Buenos Aires, a neighborhood in Laredo, Texas, he never thought he’d volunteer as a civilian for Station X in England, and go to India and China while in the Army.
"I came to realize how big the world was, how many societies and cultures there are in this world," Idar said. "Seeing poverty makes you wonder, ‘Why can't we do things to help people?’"
And it was his thirst for helping others that pushed him to devote much of his life to working for the Mexican American community.
By Lucinda Guinn
Candelario Hernandez' family moved to East Austin in 1931 from Seguin, Texas. The only time he left East Austin since then, was during World War II, when he served the United States Army in New Guinea.
"I've been in Austin since I got out of the service," he said. "I never went ... nowhere (else)."
Childhood
Hernandez was born on February 2, 1920, in Seguin, Texas. The oldest of eight children - five brothers and one sister -- he often felt pressure from those around him. His only escape was to explore the nearby woods.
By Antonio Gilb
Over half a century after it happened, Carlos Guerrero remembers the incident in May 1945 clearly - because of what it symbolized about America's racial tensions, as well as because of what it said about how communication can solve problems.
The incident happened like this: Guerrero's 65th Infantry Division was liberating a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. But the platoon sergeant had too much to drink that day and was acting like it. He was acting rowdy, and provoked an African-American major, calling him a "nigger."
By Kristen Henry
Deep blue, purple, coral. Even 60 years after Jesse Guajardo served in the Navy the colors of the seas and oceans he traveled still strike him.
"I went to the Pacific, the Pacific is blue," Guajardo reminisced at his home in East Austin.
"You get down to the Coral Sea and it's just like somebody is drawing a line just like this right here," he said, drawing an invisible line in the air, to show how definite the change in the color of the water was to him.
By Veronica Sainz
Raised with 11 sisters, four brothers and two pet javelinas in the small town of Chapin, Texas, no one could have guessed that Julian Gonzalez would become a decorated veteran of the Normandy invasion.
Gonzalez grew up on a farm where the only creatures hunted were doves or rabbits, and where the daily exchange involved tacos for sandwiches with a hint of World War II on the horizon.
Like many boys his age, Gonzalez says he was disenchanted with school.
By Corina Kellam
Before the births of his son and three daughters, before trying his hand at professional golf training and real estate, Ernie Gonzalez was a naval engineer.
Gonzalez attended Oatman Grammar School in Arizona first through third grade, before moving to San Jacinto, California in 1931 after the death of his father, to continue his school years.
"Oatman is sort of a deserted town now. There is some action with donkeys walking up and down the street, though," he said.
By DIONICIA RIVERA
Lying in a cold stream with a bullet wound to his chest, Encarnacion Armando Gonzales felt his body getting weaker and thought his life was over. Surrounded by the enemy in the Aleutian Islands, he had been shot by a sniper.
By Trinidad Aguirre
A paratrooper and medical corpsman for the 507th Airborne Regiment, Abelardo M. Gonzales fought in World War II using bandages instead of bullets, tourniquets instead of bayonets.
Gonzales recalled his combat experiences while at the southside San Antonio home of his sister, Georgina.
"My first jump was at night, Normandy 1944. It was too dark, too cloudy, so we were scattered landing all over the place," he said. "In a night jump, you have to strain your eyes to see the ground coming.
