By Claire Gordon
Paul Ybarra does not see himself as a hero, even though he survived the bloody Normandy Invasion and a mistaken Allied bombing, and he was about to be deployed to the Pacific when World War II ended. All he did, in his view, was perform his duty to his country.
When America joined the war in 1941, Ybarra was 17. But he was drafted almost immediately after turning 18. Most of his friends and two of his seven brothers were also called to serve.
By Megan Jones
John Corona Ramirez said he and his family did not experience much economic hardship when he was growing up in Topeka, Kansas, during the Great Depression. He did recall, however, that his family often went without new clothing.
"Just wear what you have. That's all," Ramirez said, recalling how he dealt with the tough economic times.
Ramirez expressed a similar stoicism as he remembered what he did to help the family during hard times.
"[I would] go to work," Ramirez said simply.
By Melissa Wood, Saint Bonaventure University
Ramon Reyes' life in the town of Wellington, Kansas, could almost be described as quiet and simple, except for the two years he served in the Korean War.
By Caroline Flores
He may only have had an eighth-grade education, but Solomen Rangel knew to stand up for his beliefs and how to get ahead. He not only enlisted and became a sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, he later fought employment discrimination on the home front.
By Sarah Griffin
While he sat in his foxhole, 23-year-old Mike Morado was scared and cold, and wondering if he would survive World War II or even make it to his 24th birthday.
Little did he know that his moment of fear and apprehension would become a pivotal event that would shape the way he lived the rest of his life. Because of that moment, Morado decided to devote the rest of his life to doing volunteer work. He said his experiences in WWII taught him to appreciate life and give back to society as much as he could.
By Mosettee Lorenz
By the time he was 22, Kansas native Ricardo León Martinez had dropped out of high school, gotten married and had four children, and he was at risk of going to prison for fighting and drinking.
But when he headed for Vietnam in the mid-1960s, he found a new perspective. In the years after the war, Martinez returned to school, got a college education and worked for the federal government for 34 years.
By Tarrah Miller
“Baby killer!” were the words Alex Hernandez heard when he returned to the United States after 19 months in Vietnam, and he remembered it was a small boy, about 4 or 5 years old, who yelled them.
The Army veteran recalled that the child, at an airport in San Francisco, pointed his finger at him as his parents lingered in the background, laughing and egging him on.
“[Until] this day I think they were waiting for me to do something to that child. All I did was stared down the boy’s parents, and they grabbed him and left in a hurry,” Hernandez said.
By Michael Broker
Henry Segura grew up during the Great Depression in the area known as the West Bottoms of Kansas City, Kan., in a family of 10 children to parents who were Mexican immigrants.
His father worked for the Armour Company, a slaughterhouse in the neighborhood, and his mother sewed dresses for women in the neighborhood. Although Segura said that his family did not struggle financially and that his father “seemed like he always had a job,” he would not agree that his family always had enough to live on.
By Destinee Hodge
In 1965, after two weeks at sea aboard the USS Gordon, Eddie Morin heard the captain declare over the loudspeaker for the first time that he and his fellow soldiers were headed to Vietnam. It was something they already knew.
Morin was a part of the 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, and he was among the first group of U.S. soldiers to set foot in Vietnam, and among the first to witness the horrors that came with it.
By Maxx Scholten
Gunning down loose poultry with his military-issued M1 rifle just to savor the sweet taste of fried chicken and collecting cowpie patties to burn to keep away the nip of mosquitoes -- these are some of the memories Roque Riojas has of his time with the 135th Regiment, 34th Infantry Division, fighting in Africa and Italy during World War II.
