Army

By Claudia Farias

Nicanor Aguilar is something of a renaissance man, both as a musician and, at an age when most people would be slowing down, an athlete.

But Aguilar’s proudest accomplishment involves his efforts to end discrimination in his West Texas hometown after returning from the war.

Born Jan. 10, 1917, in Grand Falls in rural Texas, he spent most of his time helping his father, a tenant cotton farmer. The family of three brothers and two sisters helped pick cotton on 100 acres of land.

By Lindsay Blau

Jose "Joe" Eriberto Adame saw combat in one of the most defining events of World War II -- the Battle of Normandy. But one of his most vivid memories is at the genesis of America's involvement in the conflict -- the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

"We heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked or bombed," recalled Adame, who was a senior in high school. "Everybody knew that when the Japanese did the sneak attack, the United States would have to go to war and they did."

By Donetta Nagle

Domingo Zatarian looked on a map and set out to find his brother's division shortly after the Battle of the Bulge had ended in Europe.

And he found him. There was Marty in a ditch, doing the last thing Zatarian would have imagined: singing the song "Swinging on the Star."

"He was singing 'Would you rather be a mule?' or some such thing," said Zatarian, a smile on his thin lips.

By Guillermo X. García

Manuel C. Vara was a high school senior attending a Sunday movie matinee in his hometown of San Antonio when news broke out on the screen: All soldiers were to report back to base immediately. Japan had launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that morning in December, and the United States' entry into the war was imminent.

"Right then, I had no idea where it was, or what was about to happen, but when I got home, my brothers were all talking about it, so I knew something important was happening," he recalled.

By David Zavala

Negotiating a minefield on a snowy day in World War II Germany, 1945, Felix Treviño encountered a young German soldier who looked no older than a teenager; he was leaning against a tree, one leg gone from the thigh down, the wound still bleeding.

By Katie Gibson

For William Henry Todd, enlisting in the National Guard and serving during World War II transformed him from a child to a man.

"The Army was a school for me. It taught me many things," Todd said. "When I joined the National Guard, I didn't have anything ... to call my own.

"For the first time in my life, I was standing on my own two feet.”

By Ashley Clary

The laugh-worn eyes of Arthur B. Smith hide a courageous yet triumphant story. Not only did he face the dangers of the 1942 Bataan Death March and three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, he went on to lead a productive and fulfilling life.

Smith was born June 14, 1919, to José Padilla Smith and Isabel Britton Smith in Santa Fe, N.M. Neither of his parents received more than a third-grade education. One of eight brothers and sisters who grew up in Santa Fe, Smith graduated from high school and joined the military in 1940.

By Robert Mayer

Refusing to be segregated or treated as second-class citizens, Oswaldo Ramirez and about 15 of his Mission, Texas, schoolmates boycotted the new junior high school built solely for Spanish-speaking students.

By Sandra Ibarra

Miguel Pineda recalls Gen. Douglas MacArthur trying to inspire him and the other inexperienced soldiers upon their arrival in Brisbane, Australia. Pineda, 21 at the time, remembers MacArthur saying: "You kill him or he'll kill you!"

That was the defining moment when the reality and hardship of war and death hit this young man.

By Veronica Franco

On his 20th birthday, Delphino Peña was drafted into World War II as a soldier fighting for both his country and his life in the Philippines against the Japanese.