"This will give you an idea of how the men dress over here. Notice his short pants? They're made of leather." ~Lorraine Hurdle, Photo with an elderly man in Germany, ca. 1950s Lorraine Hurdle was a Black lesbian woman who served as a…

“I wanted to be accepted by the army for two reasons. Foremost was my great desire to belong, to be needed, and to join the stream of activities around me. Second, I wanted my parents to be proud of me. Almost invariably when my name was mentioned,…

"Oh, I had to go. I thought, it'll be a change. I'll get to travel. I was so happy that I did join, that I got a good job."~Carmen Contreras Bozak, VOCES Oral History Project, 2002 Born on New Years Eve 1919, in Cayey, Puerto Rico, near San Juan,…

“I took an oath to protect this country and I’m doing my best to live up to the values of the Army. It’s been frustrating and heartbreaking not to obtain my citizenship as promised, but I will continue to honor my commitment. It’s what I would expect…

“It was our way of paying back our adopted country, defending it with our lives.”~Alexander Vindman, Interview with HIAS, 2020"People come to this country as immigrants and refugees and serve-- whether that be in service in uniform like Alex and I…

“The day I was eighteen, I was inducted into the military. And I actually became a citizen afterwards, in the military, in a place outside of Jacksonville, Florida, I was sworn into the—as an American citizen. I stayed in the military through basic…

“As soon as I read that there were millions of us, I said to myself, well, it’s perfectly obvious that what we have to do is organize, and why don’t we identify with other minorities, such as the blacks and the Jews? I had never known a black, but I…

"My people honored me as a warrior. We had a feast and my parents and grandparents thanked everyone who prayed for my safe return. We had a "special" [dance] and I remembered as we circled the drum, I got a feeling of pride. I felt good inside…

"The American GI Forum started with the Felix Longoria case, we had gone into police brutality, lack of representation in juries, lack of representation in draft boards. I knew civil rights [as a Mexican-American]. I knew the problems, I knew where…

"You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea." ~Medgar Evers or Myrlie Evers, widow of Medgar Evers, 1963 Born into a working-class Black family in Decatur, Mississippi, Medgar Evers attended segregated schools and witnessed a…