• Total US Veteran Population 23,443,000 (Per US Dept. of Veterans Affairs 9/08)
• Army – 44.4%, Navy- 22.7%, Air Force- 18.2%, Marines- 10.3%, Non-Defense- 1%, Reserve Forces- 3% (Approx. Figures Per US Dept. of Veterans Affairs 9/08)
• Total US Female Veteran Population 1,802,000 (Per US Dept. of Veterans Affairs 9/08)
• Veterans in California account for 9% of all US Veterans (Per US Dept. of Veterans Affairs 9/08)
• Veterans make up roughly 8.6% of the civilian population 18 years and older in Fresno County (census.gov 2005) Roughly 80,075 of 931,098 in 2007
• Regardless of the day of the week, Veterans Day is observed on November 11. This day was chosen to commemorate World War I, which ended on November 11, 1918.

A Soldier with a Thousand Lives

By Juan Cedillo

I served as a technician fifth grade during WWII. I was born in Texas in 1925. My father moved there from Mexico to make a better life for his family. I worked as a farm laborer making only two dollars and fifty cents, working from sunrise to sunset. At the age of 16, I left school to help support the family.

In 1943, I was drafted into the United States Army. WWII had begun and Uncle Sam decided he wanted me. I was afraid of heights so I didn’t join the air corps. I was afraid of sharks so I didn’t join the navy. I chose the army as a rifleman and became a sharpshooter.

I served in the Rhineland Campaign in the 23rd Armored Infantry Division at the Battle of the Bulge. After six weeks of training in San Antonio, Texas, I boarded the Queen Mary for England. Upon arriving, I remember hearing all the people shouting, “Here come the Yankees.” I thought that was funny. I had never been called a Yankee before.

When my unit arrived at our first duty station in Luxemburg, in November 1943, the battlefield was littered with guns and fallen soldiers. The sergeant told us to pick up any gun we wanted, oil it and test it in the woods. I received special training launching hand grenades from my Browning automatic rifle. My job was to find the enemy and flush them out. My team searched foxholes, basements and anywhere else we thought German soldiers might be hiding.

I remember when I went in to my first battle. I was scared. My buddy to the left of me was killed. Then my buddy to the right of me was killed. I wasn’t scared no more. I was mad. Mad was better.

In the Battle of the Bulge, we traveled from Luxemburg to Belgium. It was an exhausting experience. I remember crossing the Rhine River, and I remember living in the snow for months. We fought in the snow. We even slept in the snow. A lot of men lost fingers, toes and feet from frostbite. Many even died. It was terrible time.

One time in particular, I recall they sent an armored battalion through a narrow canyon. There was a German pillbox ahead of us. They could easily have killed us and destroyed every tank in the battalion unless we did something. My team of six men was ordered to take them out, and we did. We got up close behind the pillbox; we waited a long time for the right moment. The moment came, and the bazooka man fired the bun and destroyed the Germans, and our convoy was allowed to continue. We saved our tank that was pinned down.

We traveled more than eighty miles through the snow and chased the German soldiers ahead of us. They were running so fast we couldn’t catch up to them. We arrived at a German airbase. The Germans had deserted it. My job was to destroy all the parachutes, and my buddy did something to all the engines so the planes couldn’t take off.

We were on our way to Antwerp and came across a concentration camp the Germans had deserted. There were no guards. They left the POWs locked inside. We cut the chains on the gate and let the prisoners out. There were thousands of them, and they were all starving. As soon as they passed through the gate, they fell down and started eating the weeds and grass. They were so hungry. We gave them what food we had with us, and they went into the houses in the town looking for food and clothes.

We got medical help for the really sick ones. The prisoners of war were nothing but skin and bones. A Polish man kneeled down in front of me and said, “’The Lord has sent me an angel.” I never forgot that day. It was the most horrible thing I ever saw. I want people to know what happened to those poor people and never forget it.

We did what we could in a short time then my division kept moving forward and we met with the Russian forces in Berlin. I was part of the German occupational forces for a while before I went back home to Texas and began working in construction. I met a beautiful young lady, but when I asked for a date, she told me, “No! I don’t date.” So I said, “OK, will you marry me?” She said, “Yes,” We were married in 1951 in Atchington, Texas.

We moved to California and raised three sons and two daughters. We have over seventeen grandchildren and great grandchildren. My wife and I have celebrated a fiftieth wedding anniversary, and we felt truly blessed to have such a wonderful family. We really come together and support each other. I am very proud of them.

I have tried to live my life in a way they will see me as a hero. They are the reason I want to tell this story. I want my grandkids to know what we did over there, and to remember, “Mo matter how bad things can be, the Lord can carry us through.”