AUSTIN — About a dozen World War II veterans gathered Sunday at the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry to share firsthand accounts of their wartime service and lives after returning home.
The veterans, all at least 100 years old, spoke to hundreds of attendees during the Gathering of World War II Heroes, an event organized through The War Remembered oral history project.
Bernard Snyder recalled serving in the Pacific Theater alongside his brother. Before they returned to Austin, the brothers promised each other they would work to address the discrimination they had experienced.
“There was a lot of discrimination,” Snyder said. “And we said, when we get back to Austin, we’re going to change that.”
Snyder and his brother grew up Jewish and faced prejudice before and during the war. After returning to Austin, they pursued lives focused on civic service.
Historian Patrick Reed, who founded The War Remembered, organized the gathering to give more people an opportunity to hear veterans describe their experiences.
“Looking into their eyes, it’s really as close as you can get to being there yourself,” Reed said.
The National WWII Museum estimates that fewer than 0.2% of the 16.4 million Americans who served during World War II remained alive in 2026. Just under 2,000 World War II veterans live in Texas.
Victoria Lamb traveled from College Station with her daughter, Violet, to meet the veterans. The pair participate in historical reenactments and wanted Violet, 10, to meet veterans while opportunities remain.
Rose Dern, a Georgetown resident who served with the U.S. Navy WAVES, also attended the gathering. Dern was among the early women allowed to serve outside the continental United States during wartime.
Veterans recall combat
Chester “Buck” Sloan, who grew up in Kerens, Texas, recalled driving a 6×6 truck onto Omaha Beach shortly after the Normandy landings in 1944.
Sloan said soldiers assigned him to waterproof the truck before he drove it through water that reached the windshield. After reaching higher ground, he received a Browning automatic rifle after its original operator died.
Sloan said he carried the weapon through the Battle of the Bulge.
Joe Cucinotta recalled traveling from New Jersey to Europe with the Army aboard the Empress of Scotland. His unit later fought in Italy during the Battle of the Rapido River.
German forces captured Cucinotta, who spent 15 months as a prisoner of war. He remembered a German camp commander showing him chocolates that the commander’s son, who was a prisoner of war in Kansas, had sent him.
Historian and reenactor Zachary Wilson said veterans provide details that historical records often do not capture.
“The most primary of primary sources are the people who were there,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot of small things that don’t make it into the books, don’t make it into diaries.”
Life after the war
Jose Mendez, who grew up in Benavides, Texas, recalled losing 16 schoolmates during the war. After returning home, he encountered discrimination against Latinos and other minorities and pursued civic service.
Sloan returned to music after the war, continuing to play guitar and fiddle. He also performed alongside legendary Texas musician Bob Wills and remains active as a musician at age 101.
Karl Schmitt returned to college after his military discharge and eventually joined the University of Texas at Austin, where he became a professor emeritus.
Schmitt served in Europe, participated in the liberation of Rome and other battles, and received two Purple Hearts.
Despite his military service, Schmitt said he does not consider war heroic or romantic.
“War is hell. It’s not glorious. It’s not romantic,” Schmitt said. “It is dirty. It is physically dirty.”
The gathering gave attendees an opportunity to hear those memories directly from veterans who experienced the war more than eight decades ago.