For a second time this year, Latino veterans who live in Bee County and who served during World War II will have an opportunity to share their memories of the great conflict with future generations.

The Bee County Historical Society will co-sponsor the event along with VFW Post 9170.

The interviews will be conducted by the the University of Texas School of Journalism’s U.S. Latino-Latina WWII Oral History Project.

UT students will record the interviews on film and the digital copies will be kept at the school for researching purposes.

Project manager Raquel Garza said the Oral History Project was developed to document the experiences of Latino and Latina veterans who served their country valiantly during WWII but never received recognition for their contributions.

More than 600 Latino veterans from across the county have already been interviewed.

Ten Latino veterans from Bee County have agreed to be interviewed.

Earlier this year, nine Latino veterans were interviewed.

“We knew we couldn’t interview all the veterans in one day so we decided we would have two interview sessions,” explained Bee County Historical Society President Rudy Garcia.

The interviews will be conducted at A.C. Jones High School on Saturday, March 21.

Half of the veterans will be interviewed in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. Each veteran will be notified of the time of their specific interview.

Lunch will be provided at noon.

“Any Latino veteran who served during World War II who has yet to be interviewed and who wants to be interviewed should contact us before the March 21 interview session,” Garcia said. “We want to make sure we interview all the Latino veterans we possibly can.”

Family members can accompany the veterans to their interviews.

“The University of Texas works with local organizations to conduct and record interviews with Latino and Latina veterans of World War II, recognizing that there has been a missing link in the national understanding and appreciation of the significant contributions and sacrifices of these citizens,” said Bee County Historical Society member Frank Morón. “A lot of these guys, they don’t want to talk about the war. They don’t want to remember the horrors of war or share their feelings with other people. A lot of these veterans have never even shared their experiences with their own families. They’ve only agreed to be interviewed because we begged and pleaded with them to do so.”

Morón is the chairman of the society’s Oral History Project and an A.C. Jones High School teacher.

A representative from the office of U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa will be at the school for a special awards ceremony for the vets and their families at noon.