Alessio Ramirez, known as "Tio Poy," has always been reluctant to toot his own horn about his service during World War II. But this Memorial Day, more than 50 years later, two Senators and a Congressman will toot it for him and 73 other veterans from the neighborhood of Eden Gardens. PNS correspondent Daniel Ramirez -- Tio Poy's nephew -- is pursuing a Ph.D. in Religion at Duke University.

SAN DIEGO -- My uncle Alessio Ramirez's most vivid memory of World War II of his own near-death experience. It was in the midst of a two day gun battle with Japanese troops on Mindanao. His squad was lost. He figured the next bullet surely had his number on it.

Hunkering down as the bullets whistled by through the jungle foliage, his thoughts ran to his mother Maria back home in Eden Gardens, and how her heart would break at news of the death of her eldest son.

Then something pulled him back. The noise of combat faded. In his mind, a tree loomed large, and dropped its protective branches around him -- Alessio saw himself as an infant, carefree, playing on the banks of a brook. Suddenly he knew he would see Maria again.

Like so many Mexican American veterans, Tio Poy (Uncle Chicken -- a moniker he carried because of his scrawny youth) is reluctant to toot his own horn about his war exploits. But this Memorial Day, California's two US Senators and the district's Congressman (governor Pete Wilson declined) will do it for him. Along with 73 other Mexican American veterans of Eden Gardens -- many of them born in Mexico -- Tio Poy will be honored at a special celebration in the colonia park, complete with a veterans memorial and a Wall of Honor at the community center.

These Chicano vets have received little notoriety. Alessio Ramirez's buddy Max Hernandez caught the attention of war corespondent Ernie Pyle while fighting Rommel's tanks in North Africa. Pyle told Max's story and also recounted the exploits of his brother Tommy ("Pee Wee") whose diminutive stature suited him perfectly for the cramped space of a tail gunner. Salvador Castro landed, crouched purposefully behind his machine gun, on the cover of Life Magazine.

This year's ceremony couldn't be better timed. In an era when immigrants are scapegoated, their loyalty questioned, and the biculturalism of their progeny is seen as a threat to the national identity, the testimony of these Latino veterans who took their bilingual culture into the foxholes speaks volumes.

Nationwide, Chicano veterans have won more medals per capita than members of any other ethnic group since World War II -- not that they were any braver, but because the poor have always been front-line cannon fodder. Tio Poy plans to tell the visiting dignitaries, "We didn't have draft dodgers or flag burners."

They did have casualties. Manual Holguin wounded at Iwo Jima. Jesus "Chuy" Covarubias buried in France where he was killed one day after the German surrender. One man's remains from the Korean peninsula have just been identified, through a Sears' card found in his wallet. Victor Lopez's death in Vietnam will also be memorialized by the monument.

Today, when the grandchildren and great grandchildren of these veterans visit the quaint neighborhood of Eden Gardens in the town of Solana Beach in northern San Diego County -- a brown working class island in a sea of white affluence -- they will take note that this little piece of real estate is as American as they come.

Like so many other Eden Garden vets, Tio Poy's story actually begins far to the south in the mango-laden hills above Penjamo in Guanajuata, Mexico. It was from there, some six decades ago, that his mother carried him north.

On a recent visit there, I asked a cousin to take me to Nana Maria's house. We were downcast to find only a mound of stones.

But on the way, we crossed the brook that bisects the village. Several women were washing clothes while their infants scampered about. Overhead, an enormous, gnarled, old tree stood watch. Its foliage spread out in all directions, sheltering the children.

When Tio Poy asked me about my trip, I described this scene. He paused, and said, "You won't believe this, but I'm going to tell you something I've never told a soul..."

And this is how I first heard about the vision during that battle in the Pacific.