By Michele Pierini
At the age of 17, fresh from graduating Bowie High School in El Paso, Texas, Roberto Tovar volunteered for military service, something he’d wanted to do since he was 13, after the Pearl Harbor bombing.
“I was very well motivated ... I was real proud of the country and real proud of everybody,” Tovar said.
By Rachel Fleischman
Frank Yturralde’s life is interwoven with the threads of family and education.
At times they clashed, at times they co-existed, but mostly they were symbiotic -- family feeding education, education feeding family.
Yturralde grew up in a bilingual household in El Paso, Texas, where the importance of learning both English and Spanish was stressed. His mother was born in the U.S. and didn’t speak Spanish, while his Mexican-born father spoke both Spanish and English.
By Luther Xue
By the time President John F. Kennedy urged his fellow Americans in 1961: “Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country,” Maria “Cora” Ramirez already had been helping for 21 years.
During World War II, Ramirez volunteered at the Red Cross by spending two hours a day wrapping bandages for the troops. She also spent time preparing to supplement military issued clothing that the troops needed, especially socks.
Soon after his 18th birthday, Luis A. Calderon was drafted into the Army. He fought with the 75th Infantry Division for 94 consecutive days ending on April 13, 1945. That relatively short period of time in his life would have lasting effects on him and his family.
During the Battle of the Bulge, the temperature was 10 below zero, causing Calderon to develop frostbite. The medics merely sprayed his feet and sent him back to fighting.
By Cheryl Smith Kemp
Ninety-year-old Rafael Torres doesn’t have the mind he had back when he was growing up in El Paso, Texas, nor when he began penning his memories of World War II, but he still seems to remember quite clearly the torture of the head injury that eventually brought him home from the war.
Torres recalls going down Mount Rotondo near San Pietro, Italy, with the rest of his platoon on Dec. 15, 1943. Being assigned to rear guard duty, no one was behind him.
By Maggie Sirakos
To Flora Alicia Shank, the war seemed like what we see in the movies today – a medley of sacrifice, tragedy, celebration, shock, heroes and fright.
Shank was a teenager in El Paso, Texas, when World War II broke out. She recalls many evenings spent dancing at the local United Service Organization, or USO, which she says soldiers still visit for recreation today. According to the USO homepage, its mission is to provide morale, welfare and recreational services to uniformed military personnel. Nearly 120 USO Centers dot the world today.
By Maria Torres
Maria Torres was only 12 years old when the war began, yet she was old enough to remember the profound impact it had on her life and family in El Paso, Texas.
“When my brothers left, it just seemed like something that belonged to my parents had been taken, and they didn’t know if they were going to have that something back at home again,” recalled Torres, whose four brothers – Alfonso, Jose, Maurice and Alejandro Holguin – served in the war.
By Bianca Camaño
Education was always important in the Esparza home. So from an early age, Angel Esparza expected he and his six siblings would graduate from high school and go on to college.
Esparza attributes his high educational goals to his mother, Guadalupe Vega Esparza.
"My mother was pro-education like you won't believe," said Esparza, who was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1922. "We were all going to get all the education possible, so we did."
By Alyssa Armentrout
As U.S. Army medic Santiago Craver drove his ambulance up to the pick-up site in Northern Africa, one of the wounded men glanced up at him from below.
He had a familiar face.
"It was one of my friends who used to work with me at William Beaumont Hospital," Craver said. "It was Leo. His fingers had been cut off."
When someone else got in the driver's seat, Craver went back to care for the wounds of the old friend. As a member of the Medical Corps in Northern Africa during World War II, it was a familiar scene for him.
By Yvonne Lim
Carlos Cavazos, a veteran infantry instructor, has been wearing his olive-brown wool uniform, along with his Army cap and gray, knotted, tie to special events for 35 years. He keeps the uniform, issued to him more than 50 years ago, clean and neatly pressed, and modestly decorated with medals and ribbons.
Cavazos says he wears it to honor veterans and those who served on the home front throughout all wars.
"It means a lot to me," Cavazos said. "I wear my uniform with pride, but I do not wear it to glorify myself. I wear it to honor the veterans."