You’ve Got a Buddy, Pvt. Hernandez, Wherever You Are

Ray Miller is looking for Jesus.

Not Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Jesus Hernandez, Miller’s old Army buddy.

Yet, it may be easier to find the Lord.

Miller and Hernandez met 45 years ago, then two draft-age Americans from opposite sides of town. Miller was a college student living in Long Beach, Hernandez a mattress factory worker from East Los Angeles. Miller was single and relatively well-off; Hernandez was struggling to support a wife and baby.

Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House and most of white America was still complacently segregated. It was the 1950s, a decade that saw the mushrooming of shopping malls and suburbs, trends that would pull communities even further apart. At the time, the military served as a vanguard of racial integration.

In 1956, draft notices arrived at two very different Southern California households. The Army was about to bring together two men who otherwise would never have met.

This is not a story of bonds formed in battle. There was no war to provide harrowing experiences shared in trenches. No lives risked or saved.

It’s simply the story of a two-year friendship forged in peace and based on compatible personalities and common interests. A friendship that faded with the return to civilian life, each man going back to his side of town.

Now, after four decades of lost contact, Miller wants to locate Hernandez for an upcoming reunion of their Army unit in Reno next week. The two men completed basic training at Ft. Ord and were stationed at an antiaircraft gun barracks in Kitzengen, Germany, part of the Army’s 710th Ordnance Battalion. Miller was assigned mail duty; Hernandez became a vehicle mechanic.

There’s very little else to go on. No date of birth, wedding date or spouse’s name. What Miller knows about Hernandez can’t be found in any database.

Like Miller, Hernandez loved sightseeing and taking pictures as the two traveled Europe during leaves. On a trip through Spain, Hernandez let Miller’s high school Spanish do the talking, self-conscious of using his own barrio Spanglish in the land of Castilian.

Besides, Hernandez was naturally shy and strait-laced, says Miller. His Mexican American friend didn’t drink or chase women, saving money instead for his family back home. His joy was the daily letters from his wife. Once, Miller recalls, Hernandez was elated because she had sent him a recording of “Mi Musica Es Para Ti,” My Music Is for You.

“And he played that constantly,” Miller chuckles, “until everybody got tired of hearing it.”

Hernandez lived on Hazard Avenue, in a small house just up the hill from Brooklyn Avenue, now Cesar Chavez. But Miller doesn’t remember the exact address. A few times over the years, he tried to find the place again while driving through the area. But everything had changed. The residents were wary; the houses all looked the same.

To make matters worse, former Pvt. Jesus Hernandez happens to have the fifth most common Latino surname in the United States.

Giving up on an Internet search, Miller, 67, recently stopped at a library and consulted phone books for Los Angeles and Long Beach. He copied down the numbers for every Jesus Hernandez listed--more than five dozen.

Then Miller started dialing.

Next to each number he briefly noted the outcome--wrong numbers, recordings, disconnected service. He crossed off anybody who couldn’t speak English. He skipped the two men who had served in the Mexican Army.

One person tried to be helpful: “My brother is named Jesus, but I don’t think he was in the Army. He’s only 14.” Another was rude: “Man, you must be on crack.”

Miller was almost out of ideas when he contacted me. We met one morning last week at a coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway, not far from his home on the upscale Palos Verdes Peninsula. The semiretired school psychologist brought along a monogrammed leather photo album he had made by hand while in the service. He flipped through black-and-white photos of his friend, Chuy, a nickname for anybody named Jesus. The soldier was handsome, dark-complected and well-dressed, even when off duty, admiring a castle or strolling the French Riviera.

The old friends got together only once after their discharge in 1958. Hernandez and his wife came to visit Miller, newly married with a new tract home in Carson. The reunion was uncomfortable.

“I think he felt out of place,” Miller recalled, slicing the air with his hand to illustrate class differences. “There was a sort of barrier.”

Those are barriers friends can hurdle by recognizing their common humanity. But first, they must find each other.

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com