Author: Joe Barrera

Like any war veteran, I’m happy to get some recognition for my service. That’s what Veterans’ Day is all about. A grateful country pauses and gives us a well-earned pat on the back and I like that. But it hasn’t always been this way. When we returned to “The World,” as we called the US,…

It’s that time of year again. The days are short, the nights are long, leaves die and fall, cold winds blow, and we are compelled to recognize that death is the only certainty in human life. We are resigned to the truth that life and death are two sides of the same coin. We accept…

September brings Hispanic Heritage Month, a commemoration that we would think has fulfilled its purpose after all these years but is still a necessary reminder that 62 million people in this country owe their existence to Spain’s colonial ambitions and the imperial expansion of the United States. It’s one thing to dress up in big…

It’s the season of anniversaries: My arrival in Vietnam, the 9/11 attacks, and now the one that’s still bleeding and will be hurting for a long time — the debacle in Afghanistan. There was ample warning about this one, but we failed to learn the lessons of British and Russian defeats in Afghanistan. It’s one…

Our longest war is over. It’s not easy to accept defeat. But it has happened again. The Taliban have defeated us, just as the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese defeated us in 1975. The last few days have been hard for me as I watch the chaotic crowds, faces etched with fear in their…

In 1990, the former director of the Urban League of the Pikes Peak Region, John Stokes Holley, published “Invisible People of the Pikes Peak Region,” a history of the Colorado Springs African American community. The title of his book was completely appropriate. Black folks were mostly overlooked in every account. They received little credit for…

The controversy over critical race theory has brought into focus the neglected history of our amazing human mosaic. For years, I taught American Ethnic Studies and Race Relations, with the emphasis on the histories and cultures of the various ethnic groups, Euro-Americans and people of color, who have made this country what it is. I…

Seeing the newspaper front page pictures of the grieving relatives after the mass murder at the southeast Colorado Springs trailer park, I wish that I had a “theory” to explain how this kind of thing just keeps happening. It just keeps happening, over and over again. The only answer I have is that there are…