WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
FROM THE TRAINING CAMP TO THE FRONTLINE
It was the winter of 1967, in south-west Africa.
We were at a military school in wartime. New recruits arrived that day, fresh off the enlistment process.
The clarion cut through the dim light of the morning.
Little by little, the barracks woke up, activity replacing the stillness of the night. Other chimes determined the routine of a new day. The raising of the flag, the raising of the barracks, and one more chime to signal the beginning of work.
Six hundred men passed through the main gate. From the luggage they were carrying, you could tell a little about their origins.
There were men from the countryside, with their bundles or bags hanging down, walking awkwardly. There were those from the city, with suitcases in their hands. These showed less balance, as they were used to walking on shoes. There were also the clever, ungainly scoundrels, with all their swagger. Among all of them, every other newcomer walked in with visible sadness, heads down. Their gait betrayed their insecurity, may be because of their fear of the unknown, may be because their self-anguish. There was also a handful of wealthy children, with well-trimmed hair and designer clothes, encumbered with second suitcases, with an expression of fear and suspicion.
There we had everything a society could offer.
Rich and poor, fat and thin, believers and unbelievers, hard workers and vagabonds. All they had in common was their age and, deep down, a mixed feeling of anguish and fear, stemming from the certainty of the risks they would be taking. No motivation, no will, only conformity.
Already lined up, they are then taken to the barracks, where they leave their belongings. Then they receive their uniforms, which are picked by eye, with little concern for size or comfort. In fact, comfort is the first noun to be discarded as they enter the barracks.
We would train soldiers out of those imperfect men and their vices, procrastinators and insecure. With those men, we would fight in the war that we had been fighting since 1961.
Often, after an exhausting day, I would lie down and think. How nice it would be if I could specifically pick, among all those men, the ones who would make up my combat squad.
Criteria for picking them? That would be easy. Firstly, those who learnt to cut cheese into thin slices, always on the same side, those who got up early, made their beds, hung up their clothes, went to school on time, and soaked in every word spoken by their teachers.
Those who knew the names of all their friends, their parents, and their friends' friends.
Next, those who, despite their wealth, worked, delivered, and displayed humility, Those who learnt from the gardener and have lunch with the chauffeur’s son.
Or those who picked up paper in the street in winter and carried stones to help their neighbour build their house. Those who had calluses in their souls from experiencing plenty of failure and persistence.
Then I would wake up from all this dreaming of paradise, almost always jolted awake by the sound of the clarion call, which insisted on not letting itself be put to silence.
This time, night exercises beckoned. There I was, with unfinished thoughts, sending home vandals and vagabonds, the irresponsible and the arrogant, the squanderers and the addicted.
This is how it was.
I put my uniform back on and headed for the parade ground. Six hundred men in their positions, sergeants and officers making the final line-ups. The orders gradually disappeared. Everyone was still, everyone was silent. We could hear the moaning of an icy winter wind and, underneath it, the children. The Children of the Wind.
We cannot choose, we cannot give up. We must win the war with those people, who would be transformed into noble warriors in the 180 days that would follow. That was the mission.
The next day
Five o'clock in the morning, the sharp sound of the clarion rips through the silence with the chime of dawn. In the barracks, the hustle and bustle of another day's activity gradually begins. The recruits get up, still confused about what to do, exchanging ideas with the more farsighted peers who previously sought information from those who had already been there. They rush to the showers, where they hesitate between having a cold shower or just washing their faces and shaving. Then they make their beds and tidy up the cupboards as they see fit.
Still not understanding what has happened in their lives, they leave the barracks for the first of many graduations, which would happen several times over the next four years. They meet the officers and sergeants, their instructors and monitors, all of them impeccably uniformed, with well-trimmed hair and beards and clean uniforms, in a posture that emanates energy. With short and clear orders, they organise the platoons in three rows, side by side, from shortest to tallest. This is followed by the roll call. By now, everyone knows that, in the army, soldiers have numbers—only sergeants and officers are known by name.
The officer says his name and the names of the sergeants, asks if anyone knows why they are there and what is expected of them. He chooses someone to answer—usually the one who seems the shyest. No demonstrations of any kind are allowed. Here they begin to be trained in discipline and respect. The officer, in an energetic tone, explains that winning the war is their purpose and they will learn to achieve this without casualties. He goes on to say that only those who make mistakes die, and that they will be trained not to make mistakes, that the demanded standards will be high before, during, and after entry into combat.
This is followed by an inspection in which all the mistakes are emphasised, in terms of posture, hygiene, and uniform. No-one explains how to shave, tidy up the bed or the wardrobe, let alone how to polish the boots. One simply states what must be done and sets the threshold of excellence.
This is where the school of feeling begins: no-one explains why things are the way they are, because they do not know it themselves. Everyone ends up finding that it works, and that is enough.
Ninety days later
That day marked the end of the first phase of training for yet another battalion of warriors. The pledge of allegiance.
Once again, the clarion made its sound and, as if by magic, the barracks began to dispense dozens of men. There was more than the usual commotion; you could feel an atmosphere in the air that foretold a great event.
There was a breeze in the air that carried the scent of confidence. The jumpy soldiers wanted to demonstrate the skills they had acquired in a mere three months of training. Their heads held high, their chests thrust out, with firm steps and voices, symbolic of the pride that they felt, a manifestation of the superman that was born in each of them. They were headed for graduation.
This time, fathers and mothers, wives and girlfriends, relatives and friends passed through the gates—a mixture of emotional people, alternating between fear and pride, feelings stemming from the uncertainty of the outcome of that war, and the feeling of being connected to a potential hero, harbouring the hope that their loved one could and would survive.
The warriors laid in wait, in their positions. Now they had experience in knowing how to get it done. Guided by a code of honour and purpose, they found the reason to fight.
They have new stories for their lives, they believe in them and they invest in them. They get better every day, in a campaign against weakness, temptation, and laziness. They know how to exchange immediate and ephemeral pleasures for meaningful ones in the future.
They are committed to action, guided by ethics and values. They keep their word and feel ashamed if they fail to do so. They know how to live with the discomfort and pain of change, but they refuse to suffer.
They know no limits. When they are exhausted, weak, sad, or afraid, they overcome themselves, and if they need to rest, they put it off until the next day. They compete against themselves.
They built discipline from small actions. They implemented habits, and so the difficult things turned into easy things. They learnt to control their lives by controlling their focus.
They are capable of finding within themselves the answers they need to create a positive state of mind, which feeds the “inner voice” and saves life.
They know how to achieve the impossible by breaking it down into small steps; they know how to change feelings by changing the way they see the situation; they know how to turn challenges into a game. And they play to win.
I looked at them from afar, comparing the image of that moment with the one from three months earlier. It was as if a miracle had been performed—the transformation was such that the recruits were unrecognisable.
On the frontline
Baptism of fire
We were travelling along a dirt road when, a few kilometres from our destination, we suddenly came across a cut section in a hill, a place ripe for ambush. I felt a strange sensation. I signalled for the column to stop and for the men in the first vehicle to hit both sides of the road. As soon as they jumped out, I thought I saw something moving in the vegetation. Without hesitating, I jumped out and ordered the rest to follow me.
Minutes passed with the slowness of watches without winding. Each one of us had their minds brimming with thoughts worthy of the most attractive Hollywood plots. The sounds of the jungle suggested crawling snakes, hungry big cats, goblins, and ghosts.
Who would not be afraid? Everyone was afraid. There was fear of what was not there, of what could be there, fear fuelled by uncertainty, the unexpected and the unknown. Fears that would suddenly dissipate at the first shot, making way for the trust that made us invulnerable. Dozens of hours of training worked. Everyone knew what to do.
About 20 yards up the hill, all hell broke loose with machine-gun fire and explosions of various types of grenades. The enemies, in far superior numbers, properly armed and positioned, offered us seemingly helpless odds. We moved upwards, in greater speed this time, crawling or zigzagging between obstacles where we briefly took cover. Suddenly we saw a few of the enemies get up and run—they had decided to retreat.
Several times I had already seen those young men go from confidence to joy in their breakthroughs and, once it was all over, delight themselves in the silent but brilliant euphoria of honoured duty. All this synthesised in the superman spirit.
A mixture of honour and courage that sometimes left them pensive, as if reflecting on many stories to tell. Stories exaggerated by their desire to depict themselves as great knights and conquerors, who between thrusts and passions write about their honour. Adventures of the righteous, with plentiful examples of courage and love for the Fatherland. Stories with no mention of fear, as if they were stories of aspiring gods.
I have often thought about what it meant to be a hero. I have commanded many true heroes, but I have also met a few false ones, usually decorated with awards intended to masquerade grave mistakes and numerous deaths.
Thoughts such as this one, experienced in the battlefield, have made me an anti-hero, an anti-myth, and an anti-genius. These are attributes that, once we get to know their anatomy, lead us to replace beliefs with reality, just as fear does.
The sounds of the jungle slowly began to change, heralding normality.
Only in these moments can we clearly see the difference between life and death.
Some military practices are trained to exhaustion.
Training the limits of endurance, under physical and psychological pain, in adverse conditions, as well as communication by various forms and instruments, and the most diverse tactics, whose purposes are unknown to the troops, sometimes even to the instructors themselves.
For four long years, I wandered through war, living with men prepared to kill and watch others die. Here, I learnt that the difference between right and wrong transcends human comprehension. I started growing suspicious of dialectics, which is mainly responsible for the most destructive model of thought, where points of view are solidified, destroying the credibility of those who think differently. A medieval principle that marks Western political life, justice, economics, and everyday life. It prevails because it is attractive, because it serves the ego and ensures thinking centred on looks.
In the banality of disputes, with more or less distinction, I was able to observe how man experiences the anxiety caused by the ignorance of fate in relation to untimely death. How circumstantial and untruthful heroes are, and how important it is to bring our imaginary lives closer to the real thing. I learnt to separate admiration from respect.
More than 50 years have passed since then, but even today, when I find myself under pressure or stress, on the verge of an outburst, I think of the wind tunnels and I relax.