Jose Mendez reflects on the battles he fought, the friends he lost, and the lessons of courage and service he hopes the community will remember this Veterans Day.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 With Veterans Day approaching Tuesday, Bible Believers Baptist Church on Rand Morgan Road gathered to honor those who served \u2014 and welcomed a very special guest: 100-year-old World War II veteran Jose Mendez.<\/p>\n
The congregation stood as the stars and stripes waved outside, and \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d filled the sanctuary. Mendez, a Coastal Bend native, survived some of the fiercest battles of World War II, including Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Central Europe campaign. He received multiple medals for his service and believes only about a dozen of his fellow World War II veterans remain in Nueces County.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very surprised. I didn\u2019t expect to have a World War II veteran as part of our service,\u201d said Tony Seale, associate pastor.<\/p>\n
Mendez said he lost 16 of his schoolmates during the war, a reminder of the sacrifices made by his generation. \u201cThat is why I\u2019m telling people not to forget the fallen heroes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This was the first time the church held a Veterans Day ceremony, and leaders hope Mendez will return next year. Seale called his presence \u201ca truly remarkable generation, especially with what they accomplished and what they did for our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even at 100, Mendez continues to advocate for fellow veterans and his community. He stressed the importance of voting for leaders who prioritize veterans\u2019 needs. \u201cMany elected officials will never\u2026 look after veterans because they are not veterans themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His story is a reminder of courage, sacrifice, and continued service \u2014 honoring the friends he lost and the values he fought to protect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jose Mendez reflects on the battles he fought, the friends he lost, and the lessons of courage and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-43180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}