By Lindsey Craun
As a child, Juan Carlos Gonzales felt destined to fight for his country. He grew up in a home surrounded by a father and four uncles who were World War II veterans, and he remembered feeling that patriotism and strategic instinct ran in his blood.
By Bryce Pohlmeyer
A trip to Alaska can be conjured from the comfort of a faded brown recliner and the churning of boat propellers almost can be heard from an Alpine, Texas, living room.
Those memories are cherished by Antonio Rojo who as a young child faced discrimination only to be drafted into the Army Air Forces during World War II.
By Ashley Park
At least once in his life, Fidel Vasquez considered himself to be really lucky. His U.S. Army construction unit shipped out ahead of the supply ship carrying the equipment for him and his fellow soldiers. They made it, but the supply ship was sunk by the Japanese.
Vasquez's hometown was Marfa, Texas, where he attended segregated schools with his four brothers and four sisters. Learning to get along in school and working as a farmhand contributed to his war experience.
By Grant Abston
In August 1945, Armando O. Garcia and his family gathered around the radio and listened to the news: The United States had just dropped an atomic bomb on Japan.
Although the destruction took place far away, it was a significant event in the mind of an 8-year-old boy in the small Southwest Texas town of Marfa.
By Noor Nahas
Living in a small town named Casa Piedra, 42 miles outside of Marfa, Texas, Armando Faustino Vasquez lived and worked like many of the other young men in the area. He went to church every week, worked long days on his father's ranch in the summer, and listened to the radio with his family.
But "Mando" Vasquez's decision to go to high school would lead him to enlist in the military, and he would travel far beyond the warm, dry weather of West Texas.
By Chelsea Franklin
Through his service during World War II, Edmundo Nieto learned about the hardships and horrors of war but also experienced different cultures, met a wide array of people, and participated in once-in-a-lifetime experiences that ultimately became part of history.
Just over 90 years old at the time of his interview, Nieto was all smiles and laughter when recounting those long gone days of his 20s.
By Lindsey Craun
When 18-year-old Hector Sanchez learned he had been drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam just three months after his high school graduation, he knew that he had to face the reality, look forward to the challenge and remain optimistic.
“I believed out of the goodness of my heart, to me, this is the best country you can live in,” Sanchez recalled. “And if you want to live in this country, you've got to fight for your country."
By Emily Macrander
As his personnel carrier (PC) drove along a rice field in 1966, Vidal Rubio snapped a photo of the convoy. It was a rare moment of quiet for him in the hectic early years of the Vietnam War.
Suddenly, the tenth vehicle in the line hit a landmine.
Rubio and the other men in his truck were thrown from their seats. The men wondered: Who was hit? How badly damaged were the PCs?
Medical personnel were in the armored personnel carrier that hit the landmine. The explosion was so powerful that it threw the PC onto the PC behind it.