DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Hero Memorial Committee of Silvis, 1968-2001 | 1968-01-05 Article ""Not One Draft Card Burner On Second Street"" Page 2

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Hero Memorial Committee of Silvis, 1968-2001

1968-01-05 Article ""Not One Draft Card Burner On Second Street"" Page 2

Not One Draft Card Burner On Second Street....

Moline Dispatch, Fri, Jan 5, 1968 17

Linda Gomez Hurtado looks at the Silver Star and Purple Heart medals awarded her father Joseph, and wishes he could have lived to see his first grandchild which is due to be born this month. (Dispatch Photo by Gary Hallberg)

By VI MURPHY
Dispatch Feature Editor

It's not much of a street in size - just one and a half blocks long. It's muddy with rain in the spring, slick with snow in the winter and hazy with dust in the summer. Its surface is not paved and no large, luxurious houses grace its sides. 
They want to rename it - Hero St. U.S.A
The little thoroughfare in Silvis has earned the name with honor and with the blood of eight boys, all of Mexican descent, who gave their tragically young lives on field of combat for a country they felt was well worth dying for. 
They truly died heroes, each of them. A Latin American Press Service correspondent in Mexico City remarked in a feature for international publication that the blood of the Aztecs surely ran in their veins. 
The Street reportedly contributed more men, for its area size, to military service in two wars - World War II and the Korean conflict - than any other place of comparable size in the United States. 
Tanilo (Tony) Soliz has his own barbership now up on 16th St. in Moline. But he grew up on The Street along with the rest of the fellows. He was in the Navy at the same time the others were in the service and he still remembers vividly how it was with them. 
Tony recently walked The Street with his sons. He pointed out the houses, named off the residents, and tallied the number of its boys who went to the service in World War II and the Korean campaign. 
The total was 57 men and this doesn't include The Street's contribution to the Vietnam conflict. Of those 57, the two Sandoval families (not related) sent 13 - six from one and seven from the other. Three Sandoval boys were killed in action. 
Members of the Ybarra - Gomez VFW Post have worked since 1961 to get community support for renaming The Street to honor those men who served, were injured and those whose life's blood was spilled on foreign soil in alien battlegrounds around the world. 
They grew up together on The Street, those men, and they were uncommonly close. They were bound together by common heritage - this was the first generation of children raised in America by parents who had migrated here from Mexico years before. 
And there were other bonds. They were all poor. Although their fathers worked long, exhausting hours for the railroad and made more money than they would ever have realized in the Leon, Mexico valley country, they were still poor. 
So the kids grew up as a tight clan that closed ranks quickly, and fiercely when necessary, against the emotional assaults of an affluent, Anglo-Saxon society that didn't realize their privation or restrictions of nationality.
They roamed together over Billy Goat Jill, the small bluff rising from behind one side of The Street. They hunted small game on the hill's scrubby sides and shared two precious .22 rifles among the bund of them. 
Joe Terronez, who works at International Harvester and is a Silvis alderman leading the move in the City Council to have the street renamed was one of them.He also remembers how it was. 
They hauled cross ties for the railroad when they were still so young and their bodies so slight that it sometimes took a round half dozen lads to hoist one of the heavy beams. They gloried in the money they made and in the railroad section gang fare - pinto beans with two cooked eggs on each plate. 
They crawled half - bent in the tortuous, crouching posture of stoop - laborers along the truck crop rows outside Bettendorf, topping and packing onions and other crops. 
Heat at home was from old - fashioned wood and coal heaters. They went together to the river flats with buckets to pick up pieces of coal along the railroad tracks that had fallen from the old coal - burning locomotives. this was a daily chore of necessity and a family responsibility.

Hero St. USA 2 STREET 1st AVENUE SILVIS 5100

They were athletic and proudly starred on Willard Gauley's ball and track teams at McKinley School. They worshipped the tall physical education teacher who gave them unstintingly of his leisure time and himself. 
They grew up, started going with girls and got jobs in the plants or with the railroad. Then, the second World War blasted into their lives. 
And among the scores of boys who went to war from the long single block of The Street there were the eight who never returned....
JOSEPH GOMEZ was movie star handsome with an engaging happy - go lucky air and a generous nature that kept him constantly doing things for other people. He married pretty Alvina Garza in Davenport and became a foolishly proud, doting father after their little daughter, Linda, was born. 
He first went into service during World War II and spent some duty time in Germany. He came home and joined the reserves. The Korean conflict broke out and he was called back into service in September of 1950.
He wrote tender letters back to the infant from the war - torn hell of Korea telling her how much he loved her and the fine woman he expected her to grow up to be. He sent her gay little telegrams whenever he could. 
And he wrote Tony Soliz on May 1 that he was dubious about making it home from the war because "... they're killing a lot of guys over here.."
On May 17, Joe Gomez shoved his bayonet onto his rifle and in an unbelievably heroic action walked alone into

JOSEPH GOMEZ, CLARO SOLIZ, FRANK SANDOVAL

point - blank enemy gunfire to clear the way to a vital position where American and United Nations forces were being slaughtered in droves in the taking.
Almost single - handedly he was responsible for winning the objective while the Red Chinese pumped bullets into his stomach and chest. The young widow of laughing, loving Joe Gomez held their tiny daughter in her arms as she received his Silver Star for gallantry that was awarded posthumously. 
They named the Ybarra - Gomez VFW Post in his honor and the beloved child to whom he sent the gay telegrams grew up with a legend for a father. 
SLENDER CLARO SOLIZ was an artist of such talent and sensitivity that it is still the first thing they remember when his name is mentioned. When he went to war he made a will leaving his treasurers to various members of his family - a ring, a typewriter, a bicycle among other things. 
He was cut down by enemy fire on Jan 19, 1945 in Belgium where the Battle of the Bulge was blazing terrible new history in the annals of the sheet awfulness of war. 
The children of Tony Soliz - who is Claro's nephew - still ride the prized bicycle, the heritage of the serious, sensitive boy who made his last sketches on a blazing battlefield while death hovered over his shoulder. 
GOOD LOOKING TONY POMPA was a quiet serious boy who held a sibling rein of authority over his two brothers and five sisters From the time anyone can remember he loved airplanes and was fiercely determined to learn aviation. 
He fibbed about his age to enlist in the Air Force when he was 17 . They made him a tall gunner in a bomber crew but Tony bought aircraft mechanic training books with his own money and studied aviation in his off-duty hours. 
Tony's plane was shot down on Jan 31, 1944 over Aviano Italy. His parachute opened before he could jump and he was trapped in the screaming aircraft. Survivors reported the plane burned for hours after it crashed. Tony's young wife, Delores, was left with his son, Tony Jr., and his daughter, Sharon was born after her father's death. 
FRANK AND JOSEPH SANDOVAL loved sports as kids and played intramural athletics in high school. The brothers went to Mass at the picturesque little Lady of Guadalupe Church as did the other kids on The Street, They played murderous games of shinny with stout sticks and tin cans and as adolescents hung around the corner of 2nd St. and 1st Ave. with the rest of the guys to marvel at the new cars and whistle at girls When the war came along, they went. 
Frank Sandoval was killed on June 20, 1944 on the Burma Road. Ten months later on April 14, 1945 Joe's combat crew was overrun by enemy forces and wiped out His two sons, Henry and Mike, like little Linda Gomez, grew up with memories of a father they never knew. 
WILLIAM SANDOVAL, from the other Sandoval family, loved to box and he was good in the ring. After he went to the service he fought in exhibition matches and service competitions and planned to make boxing his peacetime career. 
On Oct 6, 1944 William's paratroop company zeroed in on a wooded area near Nijmegen, Holland held by the Germans. A fence stood between the American paratroops and their objective. Joe Sandoval received the customary Department of Defense telegram regretting the death of his son. As the GI's went over the fence William was shot to death. 
GENTLE PETER MASIAS was one of the nicest guys anyone would want to meet and he was quite a singer with his clear, true baritone. 
He swung gaily off to war wearing his paratrooper insginia with rakish pride. German bullets cut him down on March 24, 1945. When the telegram came his mother, who had a heart condition, quit fighting to live and slowly declined to her death. 
JOHNNY MUNOS as plenty fed up with front lines in Korea by Aug 13, 1951. He wrote Tony Soliz that the military hasn't "wasted much time getting me to this lousy hole" and allowed emphatically that "this place isn't it for a dog."
He was lonesome for his young bride the former Mary Bessera, whom he married three months before going to the service. He was also frustrated because Tony's ship the U.S.S Bisbee was pulling out of the harbor at Sasebo, Japan just as Johnny's troopship was sailing in and the two close friends had missed each other that close. 
By Aug 13 he had been in Korean mountains for 31 days living on "C" rations, sleeping on the ground in a makeshift bunker in the same clothes he had worn for a month. He wished Tony were there to give him a haircut, 
But there was good news - rumours that his company would be pulled back to a reserve area in two more weeks in safe territory. 
Two weeks later on Aug 27 Johnny's outfit was fighting its way to the top of a desolate shell pocked hill. 
They killed Johnny Munos that day. he was the first Silvis casualty of the Korean conflict - the disgusted,. homesick kid who wanted only to get back home to The Street and his new wife. 
Shortly before he was killed Clare Soliz wrote to Frank Sandoval that "..The Street is really not much, just mud and ruts, but right now to me it is the greatest street in the world."

Hero Street, Silvis U.S.A

Henry and Mike Sandoval watch as Willard Gauley places a wreath on the grave of their father, Joseph. 

WILLIAM SANDOVAL, JOSEPH MUNOS, JOSEPH SANDOVAL, PETER MASIAS, TONY POMPA

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Not One Draft Card Burner On Second Street.... Moline Dispatch, Fri, Jan 5, 1968 17 Linda Gomez Hurtado looks at the Silver Star and Purple Heart medals awarded her father Joseph, and wishes he could have lived to see his first grandchild which is due to be born this month. (Dispatch Photo by Gary Hallberg) By VI MURPHY Dispatch Feature Editor It's not much of a street in size - just one and a half blocks long. It's muddy with rain in the spring, slick with snow in the winter and hazy with dust in the summer. Its surface is not paved and no large, luxurious houses grace its sides. They want to rename it - Hero St. U.S.A The little thoroughfare in Silvis has earned the name with honor and with the blood of eight boys, all of Mexican descent, who gave their tragically young lives on field of combat for a country they felt was well worth dying for. They truly died heroes, each of them. A Latin American Press Service correspondent in Mexico City remarked in a feature for international publication that the blood of the Aztecs surely ran in their veins. The Street reportedly contributed more men, for its area size, to military service in two wars - World War II and the Korean conflict - than any other place of comparable size in the United States. Tanilo (Tony) Soliz has his own barbership now up on 16th St. in Moline. But he grew up on The Street along with the rest of the fellows. He was in the Navy at the same time the others were in the service and he still remembers vividly how it was with them. Tony recently walked The Street with his sons. He pointed out the houses, named off the residents, and tallied the number of its boys who went to the service in World War II and the Korean campaign. The total was 57 men and this doesn't include The Street's contribution to the Vietnam conflict. Of those 57, the two Sandoval families (not related) sent 13 - six from one and seven from the other. Three Sandoval boys were killed in action. Members of the Ybarra - Gomez VFW Post have worked since 1961 to get community support for renaming The Street to honor those men who served, were injured and those whose life's blood was spilled on foreign soil in alien battlegrounds around the world. They grew up together on The Street, those men, and they were uncommonly close. They were bound together by common heritage - this was the first generation of children raised in America by parents who had migrated here from Mexico years before. And there were other bonds. They were all poor. Although their fathers worked long, exhausting hours for the railroad and made more money than they would ever have realized in the Leon, Mexico valley country, they were still poor. So the kids grew up as a tight clan that closed ranks quickly, and fiercely when necessary, against the emotional assaults of an affluent, Anglo-Saxon society that didn't realize their privation or restrictions of nationality. They roamed together over Billy Goat Jill, the small bluff rising from behind one side of The Street. They hunted small game on the hill's scrubby sides and shared two precious .22 rifles among the bund of them. Joe Terronez, who works at International Harvester and is a Silvis alderman leading the move in the City Council to have the street renamed was one of them.He also remembers how it was. They hauled cross ties for the railroad when they were still so young and their bodies so slight that it sometimes took a round half dozen lads to hoist one of the heavy beams. They gloried in the money they made and in the railroad section gang fare - pinto beans with two cooked eggs on each plate. They crawled half - bent in the tortuous, crouching posture of stoop - laborers along the truck crop rows outside Bettendorf, topping and packing onions and other crops. Heat at home was from old - fashioned wood and coal heaters. They went together to the river flats with buckets to pick up pieces of coal along the railroad tracks that had fallen from the old coal - burning locomotives. this was a daily chore of necessity and a family responsibility. Hero St. USA 2 STREET 1st AVENUE SILVIS 5100 They were athletic and proudly starred on Willard Gauley's ball and track teams at McKinley School. They worshipped the tall physical education teacher who gave them unstintingly of his leisure time and himself. They grew up, started going with girls and got jobs in the plants or with the railroad. Then, the second World War blasted into their lives. And among the scores of boys who went to war from the long single block of The Street there were the eight who never returned.... JOSEPH GOMEZ was movie star handsome with an engaging happy - go lucky air and a generous nature that kept him constantly doing things for other people. He married pretty Alvina Garza in Davenport and became a foolishly proud, doting father after their little daughter, Linda, was born. He first went into service during World War II and spent some duty time in Germany. He came home and joined the reserves. The Korean conflict broke out and he was called back into service in September of 1950. He wrote tender letters back to the infant from the war - torn hell of Korea telling her how much he loved her and the fine woman he expected her to grow up to be. He sent her gay little telegrams whenever he could. And he wrote Tony Soliz on May 1 that he was dubious about making it home from the war because "... they're killing a lot of guys over here.." On May 17, Joe Gomez shoved his bayonet onto his rifle and in an unbelievably heroic action walked alone into JOSEPH GOMEZ, CLARO SOLIZ, FRANK SANDOVAL point - blank enemy gunfire to clear the way to a vital position where American and United Nations forces were being slaughtered in droves in the taking. Almost single - handedly he was responsible for winning the objective while the Red Chinese pumped bullets into his stomach and chest. The young widow of laughing, loving Joe Gomez held their tiny daughter in her arms as she received his Silver Star for gallantry that was awarded posthumously. They named the Ybarra - Gomez VFW Post in his honor and the beloved child to whom he sent the gay telegrams grew up with a legend for a father. SLENDER CLARO SOLIZ was an artist of such talent and sensitivity that it is still the first thing they remember when his name is mentioned. When he went to war he made a will leaving his treasurers to various members of his family - a ring, a typewriter, a bicycle among other things. He was cut down by enemy fire on Jan 19, 1945 in Belgium where the Battle of the Bulge was blazing terrible new history in the annals of the sheet awfulness of war. The children of Tony Soliz - who is Claro's nephew - still ride the prized bicycle, the heritage of the serious, sensitive boy who made his last sketches on a blazing battlefield while death hovered over his shoulder. GOOD LOOKING TONY POMPA was a quiet serious boy who held a sibling rein of authority over his two brothers and five sisters From the time anyone can remember he loved airplanes and was fiercely determined to learn aviation. He fibbed about his age to enlist in the Air Force when he was 17 . They made him a tall gunner in a bomber crew but Tony bought aircraft mechanic training books with his own money and studied aviation in his off-duty hours. Tony's plane was shot down on Jan 31, 1944 over Aviano Italy. His parachute opened before he could jump and he was trapped in the screaming aircraft. Survivors reported the plane burned for hours after it crashed. Tony's young wife, Delores, was left with his son, Tony Jr., and his daughter, Sharon was born after her father's death. FRANK AND JOSEPH SANDOVAL loved sports as kids and played intramural athletics in high school. The brothers went to Mass at the picturesque little Lady of Guadalupe Church as did the other kids on The Street, They played murderous games of shinny with stout sticks and tin cans and as adolescents hung around the corner of 2nd St. and 1st Ave. with the rest of the guys to marvel at the new cars and whistle at girls When the war came along, they went. Frank Sandoval was killed on June 20, 1944 on the Burma Road. Ten months later on April 14, 1945 Joe's combat crew was overrun by enemy forces and wiped out His two sons, Henry and Mike, like little Linda Gomez, grew up with memories of a father they never knew. WILLIAM SANDOVAL, from the other Sandoval family, loved to box and he was good in the ring. After he went to the service he fought in exhibition matches and service competitions and planned to make boxing his peacetime career. On Oct 6, 1944 William's paratroop company zeroed in on a wooded area near Nijmegen, Holland held by the Germans. A fence stood between the American paratroops and their objective. Joe Sandoval received the customary Department of Defense telegram regretting the death of his son. As the GI's went over the fence William was shot to death. GENTLE PETER MASIAS was one of the nicest guys anyone would want to meet and he was quite a singer with his clear, true baritone. He swung gaily off to war wearing his paratrooper insginia with rakish pride. German bullets cut him down on March 24, 1945. When the telegram came his mother, who had a heart condition, quit fighting to live and slowly declined to her death. JOHNNY MUNOS as plenty fed up with front lines in Korea by Aug 13, 1951. He wrote Tony Soliz that the military hasn't "wasted much time getting me to this lousy hole" and allowed emphatically that "this place isn't it for a dog." He was lonesome for his young bride the former Mary Bessera, whom he married three months before going to the service. He was also frustrated because Tony's ship the U.S.S Bisbee was pulling out of the harbor at Sasebo, Japan just as Johnny's troopship was sailing in and the two close friends had missed each other that close. By Aug 13 he had been in Korean mountains for 31 days living on "C" rations, sleeping on the ground in a makeshift bunker in the same clothes he had worn for a month. He wished Tony were there to give him a haircut, But there was good news - rumours that his company would be pulled back to a reserve area in two more weeks in safe territory. Two weeks later on Aug 27 Johnny's outfit was fighting its way to the top of a desolate shell pocked hill. They killed Johnny Munos that day. he was the first Silvis casualty of the Korean conflict - the disgusted,. homesick kid who wanted only to get back home to The Street and his new wife. Shortly before he was killed Clare Soliz wrote to Frank Sandoval that "..The Street is really not much, just mud and ruts, but right now to me it is the greatest street in the world." Hero Street, Silvis U.S.A Henry and Mike Sandoval watch as Willard Gauley places a wreath on the grave of their father, Joseph. WILLIAM SANDOVAL, JOSEPH MUNOS, JOSEPH SANDOVAL, PETER MASIAS, TONY POMPA