By Anthony Sobotik
Carmen Gonzalez has shouldered his responsibilities with grace
Gonzalez was milking cows at a neighbor's farm to help support his family by the time he was 12. And during World War II, he did his duty on the battlefield. Last but not least, when the mother of his eight children left the country after they divorced, he did his best to raise them.
By Nathan Wyman
For Ventura Terrones Campa, the gravity and brutality of World War II often seemed distant to her while living in the Kansas heartland of America. Like many thousands of wives left to raise their children while their husbands were fighting on the battlefields of Europe, North Africa and the South Pacific, Campa's goals were to maintain her household, tend to her daughter and wait to see if her husband, Diego Campa, would be one of the lucky ones who’d come home.
By Elizabeth Wilder
Diego Campa wanted nothing more than to live a simple American life while retaining his Mexican heritage.
Campa’s family and friends held lively celebrations of Mexican culture, but outside this cocoon -- even at church -- he faced constant reminders Mexicans weren’t always considered true Americans by mainstream society.
Campa was born Nov. 3, 1922, in Florence, Kan. His parents, Perfecto and Benita Campa, came to America in 1913 from Irapuato, in Guanajuato, Mexico.
By Kathryn Wilson
A pile of manure saved the life of Benjamin Alvarado during World War II in 1944.
A private in Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army, he served in the 317th Infantry Regiment of the 80th Infantry Division. Alvarado and three other soldiers were positioned as outposts in St. Genevieve, France. The four soldiers were in a small farmhouse when they saw German forces approaching.
By Brooke West
World War II interrupted Manuel Salazar Mejia's academic endeavors when, as an 18-year-old high school sophomore, he enlisted in the Army in May of 1942.
One of five children born to immigrants from Zacatecas, Mexico, Mejia was raised in Kansas City, Kan. His father, Fidel Mejia, a butcher, and his mother, Ignacia Salazar Mejia, a housewife, struggled with finances. They depended on a large family-tended garden, in which they grew "corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, onions, peppers, some potatoes," Mejia said.