By Haldun Morgan
"We were in Saipan when I had my first taste of combat. Not combat, [but] of bombs being dropped on us, trying to sink us. And I'm staring at the airplanes dropping, and I'm sure everyone is gonna hit us."
Before his initiation into World War II, Alvino Mendoza wondered what it would be like.
By Yazmin Lazcano
The experience of stepping over hundreds of bodies -- the sounds of mine blasts, surf pelting the coast and bullets whizzing overhead filling his ears -- is as vivid to Porfirio Martinez today as it was 55 years ago.
For Martinez, WWII isn’t over. He fought in major battles, and continues fighting today through nightmares of the D-Day landings.
Martinez recalled the 'tiradero' (the mess) of thousands of bodies on the beach during the second wave of D-Day landings.
"Dead. All dead," he said.
By Anthony Underwood
Just 14 miles south of Waco lies the town of Lorena, Texas --- home to World War II Veteran Ascencion "Chon" Martinez.
Born in Acampo Guanajuato, Mexico, Martinez and his family moved to the United States when he was less than a year old. His father worked in the cotton fields to earn money for the family. Martinez remembers he and his siblings helping their father in the fields whenever possible. While his childhood was a poor one, he insists it was a happy one, full of faith.
By Alison Kelley
Lazaro Lupian doesn't think his accomplishments during World War II were a big deal; the only true war heroes, he says, are the ones that don't come back.
By Ayesha Mirza
Jose Angel Lopez saw myriad battlegrounds while braving the frontlines across France, Belgium and Germany in World War II.
His tales of loss and heroism are as abundant as the grains of sand on the Normandy coast. He was part of General George S. Patton's 3d Army, who liberated one of the first and largest Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald, captured Hitler's designated successor, Hermann Goering, and saved the city of Luxembourg from German troops in the Battle of the Bulge.
By Kimberly Tilley
On the walls of a small, comfortable East Austin residence, family photographs fill the house. A framed photo of a beaming couple sits on the mantle, and an adjacent bedroom contains a small altar with a photo, surrounded by a crucifix and several candles, of a young man with long black hair and soulful eyes. On the handcrafted bookcase, more photographs of happy faces adorn the shelves.
by Minette Hernandez
MCALLEN, Texas -- Ask Heriberto Longoria, Sr. about the license plate on his 1996 Mercury Grand Marquis, and he will proudly tell you the piece of metal, which displays a Purple Heart, cost him only three dollars. To earn those plates, he valiantly fought in World War II, but the scars of war, which tend to toughen a man, have not overcome the 81-year-old veteran.
By ISMAEL MARTINEZ
In the beginning of 1944, 22-year-old Tech. Pvt. Leon "Jack" Leura was among the American troops able to cross the raging Rapido River, and help gain control of Italy. That summer, a wounded Leura would be taken prisoner by the Germans, escape and then travel across Russia before he would return home.
Leura was in the 36th Division; Company A, 111th combat engineers. As a Tech 5th grade he discovered and destroyed mines.
By Chris Nay
Even before arriving at the European concentration camps in 1945, Joe Lerma of San Diego and his division could smell the dead.
"The sight and smell of human death is terrible," he said.
His division's job was to inform the camp survivors that the war had ended.
"The people were afraid to come out," he said, describing the difficulty in convincing the men and women that conditions were safe for them - that the nightmare was over.
The Americans were also instructed to leave quickly to prevent contracting disease.
By Monica Rivera
When she was being trained as an airplane mechanic in the 1940s, Josephine Ledesma was the only woman in her training group. Later, as an airplane mechanic at Bergstrom Air Field, she was one of three women out of her seven-person workgroup.
One typical scenario was having several people working on one plane.
"You had people working on the electric part, on the hydraulic part, on the engine," said Ledesma during an interview at her home. "I happened to work on the fuselage, the body of the plane."