KS

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 Joshua Carniewski

Felipe Rangel was in the Korean War, was wounded, and lived to tell the tale. His memory isn't the best, but it's not because of the battle wounds.

Rangel was born in 1931 in Topeka, Kansas, and his childhood was like those of many others in the 1930's. He had seven brothers and six sisters, and he loved riding his bicycle and playing with his friends and brothers on the neighborhood street corners.

By Wes Hamilton

Mary Patricia Torrez Rangel knew there were places in Topeka, Kan., where Latinos were not allowed to go -- swimming pools, movie theaters, and restaurants. She simply refused to obey the restrictions.

“You know you have to speak up. I don’t like to be pushed around,” Rangel said.

Rangel is the daughter of Marcario Torrez and Guadalupe Thomasa Gutierrez de Torrez, both from Guanajuato, Mexico. Her father’s family came to Topeka in 1917 and worked for the Atchison Topeka Railroad company.

By Andrea Carpena

CSU, Fullerton

For many Hispanics, the Vietnam War era often led to conflicts between their deep loyalty for the United States and the emerging civil rights movement in barrios across the country, even as the traditional roles were changing in Latino households.

Unlike many Mexican-American women during the 1960s, Guadalupe Martinez didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mom, or clean houses and offices. She understood the importance of higher education and decided to pursue her dreams of becoming a legal assistant.

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.

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.