NM

By Clint Hale

Dealing with the harsh realities of World War II was tempered by experiences that Fred Davalos encountered in his youth. He’s more at ease relating the difficulties of his childhood than his experiences during the war, when he lost an eye.

Davalos served in the Army’s 551st Parachute Infantry Regiment at Sicily, the Invasion of France with the 887th Airborne Aviation Engineer Company, and the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment Combat Team at the Battle of Ardennes. He was certified as a parachutist in 1944, only one year after he joined the military.

By Katherine Sayre

Lina Cordova prayed each night for her husband's safe return to her and their two children during World War II.

"I used to pray every night, every night I would pray, 'Please God, bring him home,'” Cordova said. "I didn't care how he [came] home – without an arm or without a leg – as long as he came home to me and the kids.''

While Alfredo Cordova was away fighting on Europe’s battlefields, Cordova wrote him two or three times a week. When he wrote back, the letters were sometimes censored, some passages blacked out, she says.

By Julia Zwick

Seventy-nine-year-old Alfredo Cordova is one of the thousands of American men and women who served in the Army during World War II. His story starts in a poor town in New Mexico and takes him to California and Europe, and eventually back to his friends and family in New Mexico.

"My parents were very good people," Cordova said. "My wife and I took care of them when they were older, and we enjoyed doing it."

By Shan Dunn

One night in December of 1941, the world changed for Robert John Chavez. He was in the 9th grade and a 15-year-old teenager, attending a dance marathon, when word came over the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

Not long after, Chavez dropped out of school and went to California, where he worked in a shipyard, assisting in the construction of U.S. warships. He worked there until he was drafted on Sept. 4, 1944.

By Anjali Desai

Cayetano Casados had a floating, front row seat for the historic Normandy Invasion of World War II.

"We were the first ship to be fired on and the first ship to fire in the invasion," said Casados of the campaign that led to the allied victory over Germany.

"We had some very close calls. Sometimes there would be shrapnel all over you. But I was very fortunate, I only lost one man," he said.

By Helen Peralta

As a World War II prisoner of war, Agapito E. Silva said death often marched beside him while battling in the Phillippines. Having learned the art of survival is what allows him to vividly recount memories of a war that continues to haunt him.

"I never gave up hope," recalled 83-year-old Silva of San Marcel, N.M. "Guys that gave up hope never made it."

By Sara Kunz

Ralph Rodriguez dreamed of being an ambassador to Central America after graduating from college, but his plans were crushed when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in February of 1941. Rodriguez had been working at New Mexico Timber Co. for three years when he was called to war.

By Alicia Dietrich

When New Mexico native Joseph Rodriguez set sail from New York harbor bound for Europe to fight in World War II, he had no idea where he was headed. He only knew they were traveling east.

"We didn't know nada," said Rodriguez, laughing. "When I got on, I went straight to the back of the ship and saw the Statue of Liberty, and I waved at her."

By Matt Harlan

The life of Ernesto Padilla is one marked with opportunities masked by tragedy.

Padilla’s childhood was spent with his large family in Puerto de Luna, N.M. The town, nestled on the Pecos River, was a community inhabited primarily by Latino ranchers and farmers.

"My dad had a general store and a cattle ranch, so for my age, I was pretty well enrolled in the activities that constitute farming and cattle ranching," Padilla said.

Farming, however, was unable to offer all he wanted in life.

By Henry Mendoza

That his Purple Heart came in the mail long after he was home probably says the most about Eloy Baca's tenure as a soldier in the United States Army and, for that matter, the way most Latino veterans approached World War II -- it was something that had to be done so they gave it their best in a simple, straightforward manner.

For Baca, like his fellow veterans, that was quite a lot.