N.M. project tells Latino vet stories

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N.M. project tells Latino vet stories




By Natalie Storey - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Sep 24, 2007 7:25:17 EDT

SANTA FE, N.M. — In 1968, a young Marine wrote his last letters home to his two sisters in New Mexico.
In the sweat-stained and smudged letters, Robert C. Lopez asked them not to tell his parents that the Marines, although heavily outnumbered, were moving north to confront the North Vietnamese army.
“I’m so hot and tired and sweaty,” he wrote. “I think I’m getting my sweat all over this letter.”
Lopez never returned home. His sisters filed the letters away in cabinets, their contents too painful to read.
But at the urging of a filmmaker and through the encouragement of the state secretary of veterans services, Margaret Lopez Coplen of Albuquerque and Arlene Lopez of Penasco recently reread their brother’s last letters home. This time, in front of a camera.
Lopez’s letters are among the first contributions to the Legacy of Letters Project, conceived by John Garcia, the secretary of the state Department of Veterans Services, and Tony Martinez, a documentary filmmaker from Santa Fe.
“We have a rich history of military service in this state,” Garcia said. “And when I came into this office, you couldn’t find anything about it. It needs to be preserved.”
The project seeks letters, e-mails and notes sent home by New Mexicans who have served in every conflict. The five-minute pilot for the project, which features the stories of three New Mexico veterans and their families, recently was shown as a tribute to Hispanic veterans.
The tribute, organized by the department and the National Hispanic Cultural Center, is a response to Ken Burns’ 14-hour PBS documentary, “The War,” about World War II. Many people have criticized Burns for the lack of attention his documentary gave to the contributions of Hispanics.
All of the films shown at the tribute focused on the experience of New Mexicans in war, including another of Martinez’s films, “Colors of Courage: Sons of New Mexico,” “Prisoners of Japan,” and Mario Barrera’s film, “Latino Stories of World War II.”
“Colors of Courage,” in part, tells the story of Martinez’s father, Eddie Martinez, and a Santa Fe man whose life he saved, Manuel Armijo, during the Bataan death march.
“‘Colors of Courage’ is exactly what’s missing from Ken Burns’ film,” Martinez said. “It’s a remedy to what was omitted. It is truly a national story as much as it is a New Mexico story.”
Garcia and Martinez also hope the film tribute will draw attention to the Legacy of Letters Project, which they hope will be both a movie and a book.
So far, Martinez has operated on a shoestring budget from Garcia’s department, but both men said they hope to get funding from other sources, such as private individuals and possibly the New Mexico Legislature.
“There are so many letters from veterans in homes, in attics and garages,” Martinez said. “What we need to do is get the families of these veterans to share the letters with the state of New Mexico.”
Garcia, an amateur historian, said he realized the need for the project while doing research in the New Mexico Archives. He found an old, dusty letter written by a Taos man serving in France in World War I. The letter, written in 1918, was to his wife.
“It was so poetic,” Garcia said. “He told his wife not to be worried about him and that it was better to die a poor man with honors than a rich man with no honor. I just happened to stumble on this letter, but there are hundreds of them.
“Once [the veterans] are gone, all we are going to have is their stories. We have to preserve them,” he said. “It’s their gift back to society.”



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[redtanker]

good post thank you