"Salinas followed proud family history of fighting for U.S."

Adapted from Scott Huddleston, S.A. EXPRESS - NEWS Staff Writer, San Antonio, Texas, Thursday, March 13, 2008.

"By fighting in World War II, William Chacon Salinas preserved his family's rich history of honor and devotion to America.

"In 1947, like his father, a World War I veteran who was an aircraft painter, Salinas got a job painting planes at Kelly Field.

"His ancestors included José de Urrutia, a Spaniard and leading expert on American Indians who was a captain at the San Antonio de Béxar Presidio in the 1730s, and Pablo Salinas, who served at the 1835 Siege of Bexar, the first major campaign in the Texas Revolution.

"William Salinas, also a descendant of Francisco Manuel Salinas, who helped supply horses and mules to colonists in the American Revolutionary War, belonged to the Sons of the American Revolution.

"He felt he'd carried on the Salinas tradition of honor, and was glad to have survived the [Second World] War."