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".
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| 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.
"
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| 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. "
