By Lindsey Craun
When 18-year-old Hector Sanchez learned he had been drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam just three months after his high school graduation, he knew that he had to face the reality, look forward to the challenge and remain optimistic.
“I believed out of the goodness of my heart, to me, this is the best country you can live in,” Sanchez recalled. “And if you want to live in this country, you've got to fight for your country."
By Kaitlyn Clement
Rafael Cantu Medrano left his Texas hometown to join the military in 1940. Four years later, he landed at a Normandy beach four days after D-Day. He was wounded in combat and was awarded a Bronze Star.
Medrano fought to support his family while he grew up during the Great Depression and then fought all the way to Germany.
By Emily Macrander
As his personnel carrier (PC) drove along a rice field in 1966, Vidal Rubio snapped a photo of the convoy. It was a rare moment of quiet for him in the hectic early years of the Vietnam War.
Suddenly, the tenth vehicle in the line hit a landmine.
Rubio and the other men in his truck were thrown from their seats. The men wondered: Who was hit? How badly damaged were the PCs?
Medical personnel were in the armored personnel carrier that hit the landmine. The explosion was so powerful that it threw the PC onto the PC behind it.
By Alex Loucel
“You can follow around and ask anyone 50 to 100 miles about Hernan Jaso, and you’ll find that somebody knows the kid,” Jaso said of himself.
After his tour of duty in Vietnam, Jaso turned to public policy and a goal of providing a better future for minorities in Texas. As the regional environmental coordinator for the Golden Crescent planning commission, the executive director for the Greater Victoria Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, board president for the University of Houston-Victoria, and three-term mayor of Goliad, Texas, Jaso felt that he achieved his goal.
By Ajay Patel
Carmel Camacho's father told him as a young boy that, if he was kind to other people, then he would never have trouble getting along with anyone. Camacho took his father's words to heart, working as a medic in the Army, bringing comfort and healing in World War II and the Korean War.
Drafted at age 19, Camacho became part of a 17-man U.S. Army medical unit one year later. He initially served from 1942 to 1946, but his military career spanned World War II through the end of major hostilities with the Korean War armistice in 1953.
By Jackie Rapp
Benny Martinez was born a helper.
He served as a medic in the Korean War. He taught unruly 6th graders. He once delivered a baby in the back seat of a car. He encourages kids to stay in school and pursue higher education.
“The best thing we can do here is to educate the children,” he said. “There’s nothing better.”
But when Martinez started the first grade in Goliad, Texas, in 1940, he hated school.
By Veronica Rosalez
With the many hardships that their family faced throughout World War II, military veterans Mike Villa and his brothers, Raymond and Joe, were grateful that they all returned home safely to the United States.
Raymond Villa was the eldest brother and Joe was the youngest. Mike Villa was born on May 7, 1922, in Yorktown, Texas, about 70 miles southeast of San Antonio. When Mike Villa was eight years old, Simona Hernandez-Villa, passed away from an illness.
By Ashley Hord
As an Army veteran, Joe Villa has experienced his ups and down throughout life. From coming close to death as a baby to venturing through Nazi territory, the 83-year old has seen more than what his small Texas town ever expected.
By Ximena Mejorado
Cal State, Fullerton
When he got his draft notice at the age of 18, Germán Abadía’s first thought was to go into hiding.
The Puerto Rican native said he did not understand why he needed to go to Vietnam to fight a war, which he knew nothing about. His mother, Gilia Olmeda, changed his mind. If he was called to the Army, he had to go or he would be jailed, he recalled her telling him.
By Kelsey M. Boudin
A single code word kept John Montenegro out of the Korean War.
He found himself heading out to sea aboard the USS General J. C. Breckinridge troop transport ship, just beyond the San Francisco harbor.
He and his fellow enlistees were each assigned one of two code words, "Dive" and "Evil." For Montenegro, "Dive" meant that he was to be stationed in Okinawa, Japan, for the next 18 months, until his discharge on June 15, 1954.
The "Evil" group was sent to the tail end of the fight against communism in Korea.
