Joe was born in a boxcar in a Midwestern community. Willie was born on the same street.
Joe was born in a boxcar in a Midwestern community. Willie was born on the same street. Most of the homes on this street had only dirt floors, no indoor plumbing and no electricity. The street had no city sewers and limited access to public water. When World War II broke out, Willie requested permission from his parents to enlist in the army, to defend his country. Joe was drafted in 1944. Joe’s brother, Frank, a combat engineer, was killed in Burma in June 1944. Willie, trained as a paratrooper, was killed on October 6, 1944. Joe himself was killed during an attack by German tanks on April 14, 1945, just days before the war ended. All three men were heroes, all three men had been children of Mexican immigrants who had fled Mexico after a coup (supposedly assisted by the U.S. government) had engulfed the country in chaos, according to PBS station WQPT. The families were recruited by the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad, exempt from the Immigration Act of 1917, to keep the A