Latino veterans reflect on service, sacrifice and being overlooked

Axios

22-05-2025

Axios San Antonio asked Air Force veterans originally from the West Side to reflect on their time in uniform and the importance of preserving stories of Latino service members, both fallen and surviving.
Juan R. Aleman Jr.
Aleman, 72, worked in munitions during the Vietnam War. He says the discrimination began once he returned home, no matter how high he climbed in rank. He was promoted to what he calls the "top 10% of the corps" as a basic training inspector and later became a faculty adviser at the Noncommissioned Officer Academy.
"Every time I would go to meetings and somebody said a word that I didn't understand, I would write it down," he says. "Then when I would go back to the barracks. I would look it up in the dictionary, and I would incorporate it into my vocabulary."
But as hard as he tried, he had a feeling that "'if you can't talk like us, then you'll never be totally like us,'" he says.
Aleman says it's not easy for veterans to revisit the trauma of war or the exclusion they faced after. Still, he's recording his story in a personal book for his family. He says he'd feel real satisfaction seeing more Latino stories preserved in official archives.
Mike Lopez
Lopez, 78, and now living in a Twin Cities suburb after a career in higher education focused on Chicano studies, joined the Air Force after attending San Antonio College, citing financial hardship. In the late 1960s, he became the only Latino in a squadron of about 200 people tasked with intercepting and interpreting Russian communications over the Baltic Sea.
"People were surprised I did it so well. They were surprised to see a Chicano being that good — better than, quite frankly — the white kids in the squadron."
Lopez says portrayals of Latinos in media often fail to reflect their real roles and contributions — especially in military and intelligence work.
"We've been part of the American story — not just a side current, but a major force," he says. "We've been here. We've always been here, and we always will be here."