Eagle Pass

By Araceli Jaime and Jasmin Sun

G. Roland Vela was an 11-year-old delivering newspapers when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to learn more about the bombing, and they swarmed Vela as he rode along his regular route.

“I sold all the papers I had[,] leaving me with none for my route customers,” he wrote later. “I was in serious trouble! But! Normally I sold 2 or 3 papers at 3 cents each; today people were paying a nickel -- I collected a pocketful of nickels.”

By J. Barrett Williams

Brigadier General Belisario Flores, who served his country for more than 40 years during three wars, retired from the Texas Air National Guard and the United States Air Force in the summer of 1986. Upon his retirement, then-Gov. Mark White gave him a one-rank, honorary promotion, making him a Major General in the Texas National Guard.

By Elaine Mingus

For David Pineda Towns, it was always about the letters. The letters from his wife. The letters from his family and friends. And his letters back to them.

It was always about the news they brought. He lived for their arrival. Like the one he received telling him he’d become a father to a 9-pound son.

"It's letters, and letters only, that bring up the morale of a soldier," Towns wrote to his wife, Lilia Martinez, while stationed overseas in Europe during World War II. "Do not fail to answer me soon."