Veterans Day is a time for forgotten Latinos to be recognized

William Carrillo had just started ninth grade at San Francisco’s High School of Commerce in 1933 when he was forced to leave. “The principal decided I was Mexican. … He threw me out,” said Carrillo, now 88 and a decorated World War II veteran.

When the California-born Carrillo came home from the war an Army Air Corps captain in 1945, the same principal caught sight of him in uniform one day and began talking fondly of his former student to a group of San Francisco teachers.

Carrillo would have none of it. After risking his life for his country and enduring torture and 11 months of near-starvation in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, Carrillo felt he had earned the right to speak up for himself.”*

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