Healing the wounds of war: Falklands veterans recovering their helmets – 03/29/2019

It is shocking to hear Malvinan veterans talk about the war. From the way a helmet or trumpet that they lost in battle and found 37 years later, means so much to them. They seem to find there a palpable memory of what they experienced. As they could feel the courage, the cold, the horror and the memory of their fallen comrades again.

Alejandro Gorzelany knows it very well. Remember this step of his life in detail. He was part of the Air Defense Group 101 of Ciudadela, in the fourth piece of Battery B. He landed in the islands on April 29th. He was barely 18 years old and had a few months of colimba. He was sent to the Camber Peninsula. There was more than 50 days of fighting. He still remembers the echo of the distant British gun blast and the hissing bombs pbading over his head. How he had to kill himself, hand-to-hand, with the English. He speaks of psychological suffering, hunger and cold. Also the "enormous" courage of the soldiers. Account that He came back with 19 pounds less and a principle of freezing on one of his feet.

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For years, he refused to talk about it. Until last year, a Scotsman had sent him a message informing him that he had his helmet, that he had bought it on the Internet and that he had bought it. he wanted to give it back to him. "When he sent me the pictures, I saw that he had my name written inside and my legs were shaking", says Alejandro.

Edward Goodall is an engineer from a helicopter company who provided mechanical support for a ship to British army crews during the Falklands War. He was in the Falklands to attend the helicopters and when the war ended, he lived for a month on the island.

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Three months after this first virtual contact, Alejandro and Edward met in England and the time of delivery of the helmet was described in a series of videos. Embraced as if they were friends for life, they both had an emotional encounter. The Brit showed him how he managed to locate him and handed him the helmet. "It's been a long time since you've got it," Goodall told Gorzelany, who decided to don the object that was protecting him in the cold and darkness of the war.

The former soldier could not contain his tears and his emotion. "In a few seconds, the whole war goes through your head"recalls the veteran who came home with the helmet and other items the Scotsman had given him.

Jorge "Beto" Altieri is another veteran of the Malvinas who managed to recover his helmet. In your case, the procedure was much more problematic. The object was in the hands of an English collector who asked £ 10,500 for the helmet that saved his life during the Battle of Mount Longdon. A figure that the veteran could not cover.

The collector had put it on sale on eBay, but soon after he had unsubscribed and had suspended the auction. He did it when there was only a few hours left before the time of trading.

"With my comrades, we fought against the third British Parachute Battalion in Monte Longdon, where I was hit by a burst of an English bomb that killed many of our soldiers and injured many of them. . This helmet has saved my life"said Altieri. The dissident hit me at the front, and even on the pictures of the auction page, you can see the hole that he left behind. For me, this wound took away my left eye and I lost brain tissue from the left brain region, "he said.

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At that time, he thought that he would never see him again. Four years ago again, a journalist informed him that his helmet was being auctioned in London. At first, he did not believe it, but he showed him the pictures he could see the hole and the label that Altieri had affixed to him, with his name and his regiment at # 39; inside.

Finally, in March of this year, with the contribution of an Argentinean businessman, he recovered the helmet. Account that tears ran down his cheeks when he finally got it in his hands. "This headset gave me everything, gave me life," he said. "It's broken because the kids did not take it off for fear of breaking my head. The helmet took me to Malvinas Hospital in Puerto Argentino and they just took it away. "It was as if part of my body had been removed, but now I still have it with me", was -he declares.

The story of Omar Tabárez is different. He did not get his headphones back, but yes orobject tro as much or more symbolic for him. Trumpeter of the 25th Regiment, he went to war with the main objective of showing courage during the British air raids on the airport of Puerto Argentino. He played "the burden" to cheer up his teammates. And he was also responsible for keeping the flag of the regiment.

After the surrender, a Scottish soldier named Tony Banks stayed with his trumpet. And he left it in a private museum of the British Isles. Three decades later, Banks retrieved the instrument and for three months, he asked Tabárez to return it to him. He went to Argentina and arrived at his home in Moreno on June 14, 2010. Standing at the door, Banks said, "Now I can die in peace" and added, "Before, we were enemies, but now, I have the impression of having won a friend. "

Omar, who is a history teacher, says that they have offered peace and brotherhood among countries. He says that he continues to play the trumpet to pay homage to "our veterans and fallen soldiers". On March 13 this year, he returned to Malvinas, 37 years later, to play "the minute of silence" to his fallen comrades. "It was very strong to see the relatives of the deceased lying on the tombs, entwined on the crosses." Tabárez thinks it is so that he has accomplished "our heroes".

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Other veterans, on the other hand, still did not have the chance to recover their helmets. And they are in talks to get there this year. Juan Nazer is one of them. When he was 22 years old, as a new lieutenant of the Monte Caseros infantry regiment 4, he had to go to the Malvinas to defend Puerto Argentino in the hills that surrounded the island's capital during the battle final. On June 12, 1982, he almost died, the first time he stepped on the grenade of a rocket launcher that almost sliced ​​his leg and then received three bullets in the back that, miraculously, did not touch his spine. He fainted and appeared a few hours later imprisoned at Mount Harriet.

He says that the English first interrogated him and then operated on him, saving his life. He lost his helmet when the grenade exploded and fainted. "I was lying on the battlefield and I had lost consciousness.I woke up the next day around noon and I heard voices … it was the English who m & # 39; have seen and who have removed my weapon and my helmet. war trophy"says the veteran.

The helmet appeared 35 years later. A Santa Fe journalist contacted him and told him that an English collector had bought him at auction. "When I discovered that I was very excited, I contacted English to retrieve it." The collector responded that he would make it after completing a book on the history of war helmets during history. "I have no problem traveling in England. I'm waiting for the guy to answer me to complete the process, "Nazer said.

For Juan, the war was not "all that is said and there are many lies and exaggerations, it is important that the truth be known". "Many bad things have been done, but there is also much to save, the way the soldiers fought, but also the Argentine officers and NCOs," he said. Nazer now devotes himself to his security company in Posadas, Misiones, and tells that he is organizing a trip to bring back the Falklands and visit the "graves of comrades who have left their lives for their country".

In each story, there are always two sides. And as many former Argentine soldiers were able to reconnect with objects they thought lost forever, thanks to their English colleagues, there were also relatives of deceased British who recovered the property of their loved ones in the hands of criollo veterans.

This was the noble attitude of Diego Arreseigor, a retired army officer who was part of the team of engineers who fought at the Malvinas. At age 23, he was sent to the islands where he was tasked with demolitions and laying mines. At the end of the war, he was imprisoned for a month and had to raise the mines in the fields. There he found Alexander Shaw's helmet. He kept it for 37 years as a war trophy, until he knew that his owner had died during the battle of Mount Longdon. He then contacted Susan Fleming, Shaw's sister, to inform him of his intention.

Last December, they spoke on Skype. Excited, the two men had a brief conversation during which Arreseigor showed him the helmet with the initials A. Shaw to Susan. Seeing him, the woman was moved and cried, thanking him for the gesture: "It means a lot to me because the last thing my brother wore when he was killed"

"With that, I try to alleviate a little pain. When you know the story of every soldier and their families, you understand that no one has won the war. We all lost, "said the retired officer, who will visit England late April to hand over the helmet to Shaw's family in person and drop flowers in the grave of a fallen British soldier to the Malvinas.

AS