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Caminos has asked the public library to purchase the book. 

I have purchased and read the book.  I probably will read the book several more times.  I had many features of interest. 

The beginning of the book gives us a good description of the environment of the city of Guadalupe (California) and its history: “First the early Spanish colonizers cut a path through Guadalupe in the middle of the 18th century and then it was Mexicans, then a smattering of people from various European nations, then the Chinese, then the Japanese, then the Filipinos and finally the Mexicans began their return in such significant numbers they now make up over 85 % of its current population.

In 1965 Guadalupe was a town with around 2,500 residents.  This small rural town in northern Santa Barbara County would send an astonishing 228 of its young men to help fight the war.

All of them were young, most just out of high school, between 18-21 years old. This included 148 sons of Mexican parents (around 65 percent), 34 sons of Anglos (15 percent), 34 sons of Filipino parents (15%), and 12 of Japanese parents (5%).

According to Chance and Circumstance: the Draft, the War and the Vietnam Generation, by Lawrence Baskir and William Strauss, over 60 % of the eligible draftees nation-wide avoided the draft by legal means. But I am not aware of a single Guadalupan that consciously avoided military service.

None of the men from Guadalupe applied for a college deferment or other exemptions, options that were utilized by well over half of the eligible draftees nationwide.”

The book discusses life in this small town, the huge impact the Vietnam War had on its residents, life in boot camp, race relations, death, battle field experiences and coming home. The following is from The Sons of Guadalupe: Voices of the Vietnam Generation and Their Journey Home by Professor Michael R. Ornelas, Foreword by Rudy Razo:

Our world in our small town was a world shaped by the values and morals of the pre-Vietnam era. At the time of our youth, the 1950s and 1960s, we witnessed the world through the movies of World War II and the Korean War.

Through our teachers we were indoctrinated to believe in our political leaders and the establishment. These were the days of the communist threat and nuclear war. And in those days we practiced survival by getting under our desks at school in case of a nuclear attack on nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Our little town and its people endured the same fears and endured the same uncertainties as the rest of America. Our leaders rallied us to fight communism, expansionism and the domino theory.

But in many ways our life experiences were different from the mainstream or downtown Main Street America. Fondly I recall the days of Mexican music that could be heard on the sidewalk as I walked by the Muñeca Café, La Simpatia or the Jalisco Pool Hall. Guadalupe in those days was full of life.

Everywhere, there were the sounds of life. Loud laughter echoed from the corner bar or the Central Hotel and all along the sidewalk. There was live music by The Soul Explosion at LeRoy Park and street dances near the famous Far Western Tavern.

I recall the neon lights of the Royal Theater that boasted of movies in Spanish, Filipino, Japanese and English. Our life was heard in tongues. Our voices spoke words from other lands.

And I also remember my Guadalupe as a place of hard work, hard money and higher aspirations. This was the time when Mexican and Filipino men and women engaged in continual chatter as the crews tended fields of lettuce, broccoli, celery and other produce through the morning fog and lazy afternoon sun.

These were the humble folk that carried higher aspirations for their children. You could sense it in their voices in words spoken with high intensity. They talked about schools, graduations, marriages and yes, even military service. Children should aspire to positions above the condition of their parents, they insisted. Military service was one of those avenues.

It could take the children away from the smell of produce that lingered on their clothes and deep exhaustion after a full day of hard work across the changing skies. It was one way to higher places. Our parents made sure we understood.

In those days my friends would gather at my house and surround the television. We watched the nightly news as my mother and sisters surrounded us with the smells of the evening meal: beans, freshly made flour tortillas and meat in chile sauce that competed with the dramatic images of war.

And it was Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, who brought the grim news to us: body counts of Americans and communists always opened the solemn report. How could we ever understand the enormity of the war and the global conflict that would affect us all in very personal ways? Most of us would soon know the answers.

At any moment word would spread against the stiff Guadalupe winds that someone got their draft notice. Sometimes we heard that one of our fellow Guadalupans was home from training, headed for Vietnam.

And we gathered again, my friends and me, like so many others across the nation, as the lottery draft announced the next birth dates to decide our fate. By then, I had already served a year in Vietnam, an early eyewitness to the ravages of war, and returned home to an anxious Guadalupe.

There was no doubt in my mind that these future soldiers would never be the same. The war had changed me in ways I am still trying to comprehend. All of us would struggle after the war. On that night I saw some of my friends exhale loudly. Some worried. A few cried.

During the swirl of those early days some of my friends seemed to sense the inevitable. And the war would come home in profound ways.

From my parents’ home on Birch Street an astonishing number of families sent their young sons and brothers to the Vietnam War: brothers Jaime and Alex Castillo, Jackie and Eddie Escalante, my brother Manuel and I, Ysidro and Adam Deleon and their cousins, David and Ruben Deleon, Bobby and Joey Castillo, Ruben and Richard Gonzalez, Raymond Ornelas, Thomas Edralin and Jackie Ortega, among others.

Birch Street gave 19 men from a mere 26 homes. It was our common sacrifice. Birch Street was the saddest street in town.

In the days that followed a harsh reality gripped our town as some of our friends came home. Some had paid the final price. And the gloom prevailed for the months and years to come. Some of the laughter and spirit of our youth slowly vanished. You could tell the town would never be the same as a silent void moved in like the fog.

The war moved toward home and wounded us. There was less music in the streets and the neon lights of the Royal Theater on the bend on Guadalupe Street stopped glowing for good.

Our common memories have recalled the experiences of some unique groups during war: the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code-Talkers and the Nisei Japanese-American soldiers were a few. From our small town, 230 veterans of Japanese, Mexican, Anglo and Filipino origin were called to war and served with distinction.

We came home with countless hundreds of medals of all types and countless invisible wounds. And we had an uncanny familiarity with the stages of our lives like no other group from any small town anywhere.

Our bonds were born deep and the Vietnam War fashioned a profound shared experience of dedication, service and betrayal we are still trying to understand. After we returned from the war we carried an inexplicable numbness that persists even today.

We came home to our large loving families and felt alone. We were out of place in the space of our youth. Guadalupe, the home of our youth, had contracted a dreadful illness through its sons. We called ourselves the Guad Squad.

And the decades since those days have passed in silence. Now the veterans slowly and cautiously return to the place of our youth to form the Central Coast Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

After the distance and the many years in silence, we still recognize each other. We hug each other. We cry together. They know me and I know them. It’s the rule. There are few words spoken. It is understood.

For almost all of the men and me, the testimonials in this book are the first time we have spoken of the scars of war, slowly eroding the walls of silence.

For many long years we were the brothers, uncles and sons without a voice, without the words to express our profound longing for inner peace since Vietnam.

Recently I walked the streets of Guadalupe again. 

I smelled the food; the familiar smells of my youth. I heard the music that echoed through the street. I heard the laughter of some children as they played near the monument that was erected in tribute to my fallen friends.

They are me and I am them. And once again, in this time of war, I cried for my Guadalupe.

As you read our stories, you will come to know us for the first time or once again as your brothers, husbands, uncles, grandfathers and sons that served our country with honor in its time of need. I am so proud to have known them in our shared youth and in our days since Vietnam.

It is my pride to have been among them. And may those humble men and women of the fields from so many distant lands be proud of us today, as we are of them. And might the young understand.

Rudy Razo, September 2008, Lompoc, California sgtrazo@aol.com  All profits are donated to the Sons of Guadalupe for charitable purposes – allow 2 weeks for delivery. 

Mail 35 dollar checks or money orders to The Sons of Guadalupe Association, 5331 Lavade Lane, Bonita CA  91902.  For more information call (619) 267-7464. 

Rudy Padilla is a columnist for the Kansan and can be contacted at opkansas@swbell.net