Guadalupe Alvarez, 73, of Lamesa is one of Lamesa’s Vietnam War veterans. He served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1970. Alvarez was drafted straight out of high school, at the age of
18. He said he had wanted to go to college but got drafted instead. “Well I guess I’m going into the service,” Alvarez recalls thinking at the time. He received both basic training and advanced infantry training at Ft. Polk La. before going into the Army’s 1st Calvary Division. He soon found himself in Vietnam. “We went all around. We went to the jungle and then went ...