For Esparzas, military service is a family tradition

 Military service is a family tradition for the Es­parzas of Gatesville: Manuel served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, Stan served in the infantry during Vietnam and Allison served as a military nurse during Vietnam.

Stan, who was born on July 11, 1920 and celebrated his 101st birth­day this year, was inducted into the military on Aug. 22, 1942.

He said he was a jack of all trades during his service in the Army Air Corps (before the Air Force was formed).

In addition to being a marksman, he worked as a carpenter and did whatever tasks he was assigned, from cooking eggs for breakfast to loading planes, delivering mail and doing laundry.

He earned a Bronze Star for valor, seeing action in New Guinea and the Phil­ippines while the U.S. forces were battling the Japanese.

“Dad saw combat, and when they were building an airstrip in New Guinea was killed right next to him,” Stan said.

The Japanese bombed the airstrip, and Manuel found a detonator which he kept as a souvenir.

“I was in the Army Air Corps, but I didn’t fly air­planes,” Manuel said. “I did everything else you could think of.”

“He built a lot of buildings,” Stan said.

It was when he was stationed in Florida that Manuel met his wife and Stan’s mother, Felda. Stan said Manuel remains active, including repairing lawn­mowers, and is a frequent guest of El Tapatio restau­rant.

It was Nov. 22, 1965 when Stan became a draftee, and he went to Fort Polk (in Louisiana) for basic training.

“We were so happy to be there,” he joked. “On a bus ride one of the soldiers flipped off a police officer, who stopped us and told the sergeant.

“Can you describe him?” the sergeant asked, and the officer, looking at a group of men wearing the same green uniforms and with the same hair­cut, dropped the issue and walked away.

After four months of training, which included basic as well as advanced in­fantry training, Stan served as part of the 4th Infantry Division and was sent to Pleiku, in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in 1966.

Stan saw combat on multiple occasions during his 13-month tour of duty, and was injured by shrap­nel during one firefight. He earned a Purple Heart during his service.

“That was right be­fore the Tet offensive (a mas­sive attack by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops on more than 100 South Viet­namese cities and instal­lations), so we were pretty busy,” he said.

After his stint in Vietnam, Stan returned to California, and because he has been sick with malaria on multiple occasions, was sent to an Army hospital in Denver.

“I met a nurse there named Allison, who turned out to be a Vietnam veteran, too,” Stan said.

 The former Allison Mc­Intyre was in Vietnam from April 1966 to April 1967 .

“I was in nursing school in San Francisco and the Army was recruiting nurses,” she said. “Forty-two of us graduated, and six of us went into the Army.”

Allison was sent to Fort Polk, and her roommate and friend met a soldier there that led to them going to Vietnam.

“She was in love and she told me that we had to go to Vietnam,” Allison recalled. “While we were over there her dad died so she left, and I stayed in Vietnam by my­self.”

After she and Stan were married, they spent 20 years in California and then moved to Gatesville in 1990. Allison worked as a nurse for the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Temple before working as an instructor in the nursing school at Central Texas Col­lege.

“I taught at CTC for 13 years,” she said. “I taught a lot of nurses in this town during the very beginning of their careers.”

Allison and Stan have a grandson, Gavin Wil­liamson, age 11, who Stan de­scribed as “a big World War II buff.”

“He goes over to Dad’s and looks through everything, and one of the things he got was a footlocker from when Dad served that was marked ‘1943.’ He just thought that was the coolest thing ever.”