VETERANOS DE AYER

"SUCK MY ASS MAGGIE"

36 years ago the government of the Argentine military junta was launched to recover from the British claws the Malvinas Islands and the control of its southern seas. What was the real price paid by the British for underestimating the Argies?

By Charles H. Slim

Another anniversary of the 1982 war brings back to the fore again and again, all those experiences that the Argentine war veterans, continue to expose in schools and with their families so that they do not forget that the war for the Malvinas Islands, Sandwiches and South Georgias. But there are also other stories that are black or better said, could not be counted, but time makes you realize that your life is about to end at any moment and what you have done will not be known because a few government bureaucrats do not It suits them, fuck them!

In that war many things happened that the British still want to keep very quiet but that Argentines have intuited for a long time and because of their subaltern nature or ignorance they have never gone out to investigate. Only a few warned that from London and with the complicity of political sectors in their country (Argentina), they sought to manipulate them psychologically with issues that divert their attention.

This is the testimony of John JW, one of those veterans who cannot be recognized for their obligatory anonymity and their foreign attachment to the national cause of the Argentines since he was at that time a "soldier of fortune" who had fought in Vietnam and rejected by his own country upon his return, he decided that there was no more in life than the war for money. "It was almost a fluke to enter this war," he says as we sip some soft drinks in the backyard of his Texas home. "I was just 28 years old and an old friend with whom we shared arms in Vietnam and who was in the business of all this told me that something was about to happen to the south, in Argentina. At that time I was surprised because I had never heard of that country and when he told me more or less the story showing me maps and all that, I was interested and decided that I would make my bags to enroll in a new adventure ". Pausing to sip his cranberry juice, take the opportunity to ask him: Was it just for fun or for money? Quickly but with the parsimony that characterizes him, he told me "Of course it was for money friend, I always did the things that I like and what I like to do that serves others has a price".

He continued by saying, "It was at the end of March 1982 when my colleague, Jack, who recruited me to go to Argentina, began to make arrangements to travel to Buenos Aires. Their contacts paid for the trip and assured that they would wait for us on arrival. But we were not the only ones who were in the same business and who were heading there. Later when we arrived we were picked up by a group of three guys who spoke English very well so I thought they were from the Argentine government and they took us to an open area that I would later know was a sector well away from Campo de Mayo, I could see that there was Twenty more, like me, had come to participate in the business. " Then, taking advantage of the pause he made, I asked him: were all Americans? And he told me "There were Americans, French and some other English, even if you do not believe it".

Royal marines fall down 1982

We were there until the beginning of April and then we boarded at night in a plane "C-130" that took us to Comodoro Rivadavia and from there on April 9 we embarked on a civilian flight mixed with regular troops and arriving in Puerto Argentino some went to Mount Longdon with the 7th Regiment and my group was assigned to Mount Two Sisters where with a fraction of regular Argentine troops we were able to set up our base of operations and from there launch our patrols and information gathering tasks further south " .

But his situation was completely secret? I asked anxiously, to which he replied with a slow nod that meant an absolute yes. Then I asked him: What about the equipment, the weapons and the equipment, were the Argentines provided or were they their own? Then he replied "You know, that was a whole subject. I almost always wear my own uniform and my weapons but the conflict was far away and besides, we officially did not exist, we were in the middle of a conventional war on the side of the friends of the White House, you understand me. If they had detected us, our business could have been compromised. In some way the CIA was implicated by some comments that came to us, but nothing more. But I think that everything was well covered because I am very sure that we were able to get there with total reserve because of the contacts that the Argentine military had in the Pentagon, or at least that's what I always believed. "

I also asked him what were the most common tasks he did and then he told me "Mostly with whom I was, they were very good snipers. Even the army gave them Mauser 1909 rifles which were tremendous weapons. Mine were the explosives and I was in charge of mining access points where the British had to go by transporting their artillery pieces, ammunition or the supplement trucks. 

Also patrol of exploration and sabotage. One of my traps tore a huge Sea King that hooked one of the wires with one of its wheels when it landed carrying about fourteen types. " When I asked him about the performance of the Argentines he told me "They were great fighters, at least that's what I saw with my own eyes and the Toms of 'maggie' knew it very well; do not forget that they had constant training with other NATO armies. "

one picture about Goose Green Battle

On that, I took the opportunity to ask him: How did the famous Nepalese Gurkas fight, did you have the opportunity to face them? To which he replied with a mocking grin saying "You mean how those bastards died, which served rather to make mounds in the terrain with which we covered ourselves or the same British paratroopers used to cover themselves. After an incursion that we made on our own on May 17 to the southwest of the island, a terrain quite hostile for its frozen swamps, we came across an advanced airborne of four Sea King MK-4 devices and after surprising them by a flank, we were in a tough battle in the vicinity of Fitz Roy where after a fight of a long 20 minutes we will have killed a hundred Gurkas who wanted to take the top positions. 

When the Harriers appeared, we ceased the fire and covered ourselves. We dispersed and stayed quiet, silent until nightfall and there we could see how the British paratroopers and other Gurkas with a mechanical shovel, made a long common grave where they buried those unfortunates. And I think there were many others that ended up hidden from which the British will not say anything. I still keep as a souvenir a Bowie knife that those monkeys used. "

Here John comments on an episode that refers to several comments that have been heard among veterans after the war that refer to that the British would have employed the Gurkas as cheap infantry and that it would have cost them no less than about 2,000 to 2,500 of these Nepalese .

"We knew that they took some positions of the Argies by surprise, and we had warned them not to be careless since the British would use several dirty tricks to try to pass our lines and one of them was these dwarves." I did not want to forget about the rumors about the shooting of Argie prisoners among them several American mercenaries who had been executed and buried in pits unknown to the British; He told me, "You know, of those twenty-three foreigners who participated in the fraction that we were part of, only six of us never knew anything more about them and it is very possible that the British would charge them. If it had been made public that we kicked ass from government allies in Washington, there would have been a short circuit between Ronnie and Maggie, so I do not find it incredible that things like that would have happened. "The last question I asked was simple and straightforward: Do you think Argentina could have won? I look for a moment for heaven and with a snort told me "If the generals who were in Puerto Argentino had not signed any paper, the British did not arrive on the night of June 13; I'll just tell you that. "