This prompted Dan to begin the process of recognizing our fallen soldiers. In his own words "That's what led me to do my own research on the number of casualties from Austin Texas based on ethnicity. What I discovered was that the Mexican American Community, during the war in Viet Nam was less than 10% of the population yet we suffered 33% of the casualties and 30% were from Johnston High School."
"I went on the internet to research data bases that were available with the information I needed. I also visited Johnston High School and then I researched year books of both Johnston and Travis High Schools. Once I had all the information I needed I decided we needed to honor these heroes from both schools. We had our first ceremony at Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Community Center. The following year and after speaking to the principle from Johnston, I moved it to Johnston H.S. After that I decided we needed to build a monument. After we accomplished that mission I moved on to Travis H.S. and the rest is history."
