Latino Vet Forged a Legacy on Okinawa for His Children

Eutiquio Martinez grew up on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, a farm worker as both boy and man in the 1930s and ‘40s. He’s old enough to know about restaurant signs that read, “No Mexicans and Dogs Allowed.” That lack of hospitality, however, didn’t stop Uncle Sam from sending Martinez a draft notice in 1944.

Nor, oddly enough, did it stop Martinez, a noncitizen who had settled in the California border town of Calexico, from accepting it. Had he chosen to flee to Mexico, it would have been a flight of about 50 feet. Instead, at 24 years old and the father of three, Martinez went to war.

He wound up in the meat grinder that was Okinawa in 1945, a bloody battle that cost the Allies 50,000 casualties.

Martinez survived. Today, he is 78, having lived out a working- man’s life in Calexico, first as a farm laborer and, later, a custodian. He and his wife had six children, and over the years, he would tell them how brutal and traumatic war had been. And how afraid he had been, even while doing his duty. He told them the soldiers’ efforts were given to secure the future for succeeding generations.

His children listened.

Next week, two of them--50-year-old Linda Martinez Aguirre and 54-year-old Albert Martinez--will take their father on his first airplane trip. He’ll take a 6,000-mile flight through space and time, back to Okinawa for the first time since he was a machine-gunner who had to grow up awfully fast.

The children see the trip as a gift, their way of saying thank you for what their father did 53 years ago.

They’ll take a video camera and, at appropriate moments, record his comments. Back home, they’ll show the video to their own children, now in their teens and 20s.

“One of the reasons I’m going,” Linda, an Anaheim junior high school teacher, says, “is not just that I see my dad as a hero, but also to let my children know that if these men hadn’t fought to protect freedoms we have now, we wouldn’t have them. They have to be conscious of that.”

Albert, a certified financial planner from Placentia, was a month-old baby when his father went to boot camp. “I remember as a youngster, Dad always taught us that we had a duty to your country. That made us very patriotic, made us aware that we were Americans, first and foremost.”

Linda believes Latinos haven’t gotten their due as soldiers in America’s wars. I asked Cal State Fullerton history professor Leland Bellot about that.

One reason African American units or even nisei units have been glorified in film or literature, Bellot said, is that they fought as separate units. Latinos were integrated and fought alongside Americans from all ethnic backgrounds.

I also asked Bellot, who’s been teaching a World War II class since 1993, whether younger Americans fully appreciate the veterans’ efforts. “Every semester, the class has been filled,” he says. “That means 40 to 50 students every semester. I always ask why they’re taking the course. The kind of answer I usually get is that, ‘My grandfather was in the war, and I want to find out what he went through.’ It’s kind of like a hunger, a willingness to find out.”

On the eve of the trip, the Martinez siblings aren’t sure how their father will react on his return to Okinawa. “I think maybe a lot of things happened during that time that perhaps he hasn’t shared with us,” Albert says. “He knows he’s on the down side of life. Maybe he wants to share them now.”

They do expect, however, an emotional response from themselves. “I start thinking about it,” Albert says, “and my eyes well up with tears.”

I reached the elder Martinez by telephone in Brawley, where he was visiting an ailing relative. He begins by telling me he weighed about 125 to 130 pounds when he enlisted and 117 when he returned home.

“I remember when we were in combat,” he says. “I remember seeing buddies getting killed. But don’t get me wrong. I was afraid all the time. Everybody was, even the sergeants and the lieutenants, everybody.”

I ask about enlisting even though anti-Latino discrimination existed. He says he was aware of it but that it wasn’t prominent in Calexico. “If you lived in a border town, a lot of boys didn’t want to go to war, so they went across the line. I never thought of it, never, never.”

When he made it back alive, and then got U.S. citizenship as a reward, he wanted to put the war behind him. “What I did was try to enjoy everything,” he says. “Forget about the war and what happened.”

But, he adds, “When I hear a bang, I still jump.”

I ask if the return to Okinawa will be painful or pleasant. He says he sat through “Saving Private Ryan” without trauma. “To me, I’m a very quiet guy,” he says. “I think I’m going to enjoy it, especially going with my kids.”

I wound up spending about an hour with Martinez’s children. At one point, while looking out Linda’s Villa Park back door at the swimming pool, we talked about the cliche of parents sacrificing so their children can have a better life.

We take note that Linda and Albert both are professional people and living comfortably, just one generation removed from an immigrant father with a third-grade education. And at that moment, all the cliches about parents sacrificing seemed to take on a lot more weight.

That’s why they’re going to Okinawa with their father. It’s a perfect way to pay homage to a generation of soldiers who risked everything.

“We’re doing it for Dad,” Albert says of the trip, “but we’re doing it for ourselves too.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com