Junior, son to Felix and Sadie Mestas of La Veta, Colorado, brother to Waldo, Arabella, Olivia, Grayce, Stella and Malinda Mestas, died a hero's death, on an Italian battle front, in one of the bloodiest battles of the war, September 29, 1944, just a month after his 23rd birthday.

His bravery that day was reported. For awhile his identity remained a mystery, lending him the title of "The Unknown Hero of Battle Mountain". Soon after, the complete story came out.

Reported in newspapers and magazines everywhere, the nation read accounts of how PFC.Felix B. Mestas' unit, Army's 350th Infantry Regiment - 88th Infantry Division, after sustaining three days of seige from oncoming Nazi soldiers, successfully held a strategic hilltop position.

Witnesses recounted how, on the third day, Mestas, with his Browning Automatic Rifle slung off his hip, stood in the face of the raging enemy soldiers and, without hope for his own survival, laid down enough fire cover for the three remaining members of his unit to escape from the overrunning enemy. At the time, Mestas held the most northern position of the all the Allied Forces in Italy. Twenty-six Nazis died.

Five years later, Congress memorialized Pvt. Mestas. A nearby mountain that had been Junior's backyard for all his life was renamed in his honor. The Mt. Mestas Memorial Monument was erected of Colorado rose granite from the mountain and engraved with 63 names of Huerfano County's World War II war dead. And every Memorial Day and Veterans Day since, people have gathered at the mountain monument to pay tribute to all of La Veta and Walsenburg's fallen war heros.