@michelleandbryan_tv: #CorpusChristi #WWII #veteran Jose Mendez spent his 101st birthday on a WWII vintage aircraft! ✈️ Mendez was born in 1925 in Tampico, Mexico, and later moved to #Texas. At 17, he went to Corpus Christi to train at a Navy aircraft engine school, working on the same kinds of planes he would encounter again decades later. About a year into his training, he was drafted into World War II. Assigned to the U.S. #Army 1st Infantry Division, Mendez spent months on the front lines in Germany, including the brutal fighting in the Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. He said he spent nearly a year in combat and lost many fellow servicemen fighting beside him.