By Shelley Hiam
Memories of childhood and his mother's mouth-watering cooking remain fresh on Pete Dimas' mind. Sopapillas, chili with carne sauce and delicious beans are some of the foods he remembers.
"Mother was an excellent cook. You name it, she had it. She could do breakfast too," Dimas said.
Although he grew up in the Depression, Dimas says his family didn't have a hard time as far as eating was concerned.
By Christopher Trout
Alfred Dimas has spent his life in pursuit of adventure. This pursuit took him across the United States to find work wherever he could during the Depression, and in 1942 it took him into the U.S. Army as a volunteer.
But no matter where Dimas went or what he did, he says he always worked to keep his family alive.
By Clint Hale
Dealing with the harsh realities of World War II was tempered by experiences that Fred Davalos encountered in his youth. He’s more at ease relating the difficulties of his childhood than his experiences during the war, when he lost an eye.
Davalos served in the Army’s 551st Parachute Infantry Regiment at Sicily, the Invasion of France with the 887th Airborne Aviation Engineer Company, and the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment Combat Team at the Battle of Ardennes. He was certified as a parachutist in 1944, only one year after he joined the military.
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 Julia Zwick
Seventy-nine-year-old Alfredo Cordova is one of the thousands of American men and women who served in the Army during World War II. His story starts in a poor town in New Mexico and takes him to California and Europe, and eventually back to his friends and family in New Mexico.
"My parents were very good people," Cordova said. "My wife and I took care of them when they were older, and we enjoyed doing it."
By Shan Dunn
One night in December of 1941, the world changed for Robert John Chavez. He was in the 9th grade and a 15-year-old teenager, attending a dance marathon, when word came over the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
Not long after, Chavez dropped out of school and went to California, where he worked in a shipyard, assisting in the construction of U.S. warships. He worked there until he was drafted on Sept. 4, 1944.
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 Maureen King
It had always been a fascination to him, something he’d seen in the movies.
He knew he could do it and do it better than anyone else, he says, because he was a Mexican. The fascination: jumping out of an airplane.
The challenge led George M. Castañeda to serve as an Army paratrooper in the 11th Airborne Division during the Korean War.
"I'd do it again if they asked me to," Castañeda said. "If I had to go, I'd go on to the airborne. It's in my blood. That's when you know what you're made of. Either you got it or you don't got it."
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.
