Malvinas. After fighting in battle, they became friends and they are now back together

Thirty-seven years later, everything seemed identical. The places where they were supplied with water, where they lit a fire, where were the latrines. The sound of the wind, the raindrops. Only his companions have disappeared. Lautaro Jiménez Corbalán projected them into this broken and rocky landscape of green and yellow bushes. Beside him, Marc Townsend told him that since Mount Kent, they had a very good perspective of all the heights and defenses around Puerto Argentino. He also pointed out the exact place where an Englishman had fallen that night and where they placed a small cross and flowers.

Already on the ridge of Mount Harriet commented how these years went up and down as if nothing now cost them to climb. They observed the battlefield: the northern slope where they met on the night of 8-9 June 1982. On the one hand, the second lieutenant in commission, Lautaro Jiménez Corbalán, in front of the 3rd section of company B of the infantry regiment 4. On the other hand, Lieutenant Marc Townsend, in charge of the 1st platoon, of the company K of the Commando 42 of the Royal Marines. Right there, in this confrontation during
the Falklands war, they tried to kill each other. Now they are united by a friendship of ten years. This destiny that Borges would have liked
Juan López and John Ward.

The first contact was an email from Lautaro in 2008: I had to write to anyone who had ordered this attack. There was an answer. A visit to Buenos Aires. A trip to Switzerland And now, the return of both to the starting point with the intention of closing a stage.

"Despite the fact that everyone keeps his political convictions, we build a friendship, he suffered as much deprivation as me, but on the other side." There is respect and also coincidences: it seems contradictory, but the army does not like war, because in the background War is the failure of the human condition and those who go fighting it are soldiers and not politicians, "said Jiménez Corbalán.

Baptism by fire

The positions and certain attributes among the stones still persist in the field. The projectile pods evoke Lautaro as fighting, his baptism of fire – at just 19 – and that of the section. In his words: "The moment you confirm whether you are ready to face, or if you succumb to the attempt, the moment you cross a threshold and never become the same again".

That night, at 10:30 pm, it was not raining and almost no wind was blowing. Security forces were responsible for Sergeant Donato Solis and four soldiers, including radio operator and mailman Alberto Teodoro Flores. Jiménez Corbalán tried to fall asleep when Teodoro informed him that Solís was asking him if it was possible that the men watching the valley were Argentinian commandos returning in their lines. "If that was the case, they would have informed us," Jiménez Corbalán said. Then he ordered him to return to his position and open fire.

The fight exploded 50 meters. He discharged several shots. When he tried the second charger change, he has no trace of the first. He squatted in the well and watched Theodore, the radio in his hand, looking at him and waiting for his orders. There, he realized that he was not another shooter: he was at the head of the section. He gave orders to direct chaos. Beside him, Corporal Nicolás Odorcic fired with a 60 mm mortar. Hipólito González, with rifle grenades. The ammunition came and went like fireworks and mortars from the support section of his company illuminated the area. The British could not move forward.

With the batteries of the radio exhausted and without replacement, Teodoro ran a party at the command post of the first lieutenant Carlos Arroyo, in the western sector of the mountain, to send them reinforcements and to be able to face a small counterattack . Thus, the English began to withdraw. Fifteen minutes later, there was no one left in the area: they had been rejected. But reserve corporal Hipolito Gonzalez and soldier Martiniano Gomez died in action. Sergeant Donato Solis and Private Antonio Funes were injured.

"The critical and extreme situations during the fighting are the moments that have marked us the most: our dead, 27 members of our regiment, six of my section, were the most difficult to endure during the war and mainly in the period of After the war, it's forgotten, "he says.

Visit to the dead

Beyond meetings with Townsend, Jiménez Corbalán traveled to
the Falklands Islands with veterans Rubén Cucciara, Pablo Oliva, Miguel Mosquera, Manuel Larroza and Alberto Teodoro Flores. Traveling with Flores had a special meaning for him. With Carlos Antonio Salvatierra – who could not travel – they rescued him and took him to an aid station after being stretched for using an explosive trap. The group was able to fulfill its main objective: to visit its fallen comrades in the Darwin cemetery. "To mourn my soldiers in Darwin is to close a step, I had the impression that they were watching us while we were there," he said.

Lautaro Jiménez Corbalán was born in Corrientes on June 10, 1962, day of the reaffirmation of sovereign rights over the Malvinas Islands, the South Atlantic Islands and the Antarctic area. Something that he considers an omen. After the war, he returned to the British mainland aboard the British ship Canberra as a prisoner of war. I was already thinking about writing about what I was going on there. Two decades later, a book in English telling a large part of the conflict came to him. One of its authors is defined as a historian of the infantry regiment 4, his combat unit. This motivated this idea: today, he has three books published.
Malvinas on the front line, the first, has six editions.

When he looked for his book, Lautaro first wanted to know what kind of troops had attacked them. Which unit they belonged to and who was their leader. There he heard for the first time the name of Marc Townsend. It was not easy for him to write this first email in 2008. Strange sensations badaulted him. He sent a message to who had been his enemy. He could not imagine what his reaction would be when he read it. Then, in a brief text, he explained that the communication between the two would not influence the political positions that everyone could have vis-à-vis the islands.

Townsend served in the Royal Marines until 1987, when he moved to Southeast Asia, although he returned every five years to England to rejoin his companions. ; weapons. His life had taken another course and memories of the war were not a priority. "Receiving this mail has moved me in time, arousing my interest in the young officer who confronted me and that he was writing to me now, a well-trained officer who was gallantly fighting with his men, "said Townsend.

In the first messages, Lautaro asked him if he considered as correct the cards he had drawn for his first book. The exchange has become more frequent and personal. They shared pictures and one day Marc told him that he wanted to go to Argentina with his daughter to meet him.

A bag full of memories

So, in 2017, they met in person. They greeted each other with great respect. Marc wore a bag full of memories of the war and a map unfolded on the table and helped them develop. They shared family meals and walks in Buenos Aires.
This is true: they avoided talking about the current situation of the islands. The following year, it is Jiménez Corbalán who went to Switzerland, where Marc has a house. It is here that Lautaro told him that at the beginning of this year there would be a race in the islands and he proposed to launch it together: the idea delighted him.

They ran it on Sunday, January 24th. The team is called Chimichurri because of the mixture it represents: Marc Townsend, Marcelo De Bernardis, historical runner and coordinator of his trip, Jiménez Corbalán and his wife, Graciela Brunazzo (who in 1982 wrote a letter Unknown Soldier). he received in a fighting ration a few moments before his baptism of fire on Mount Harriet.) In another of the activities on the island again facing a chess game organized by him. engineer Mario Petrucci, president of the Argentine chess federation and the chess circle of Villa Martelli.

By going through the exact place where they fought, Marc Townsend had a real dimension of what had happened. It was amazing to be next to the same rock that had sheltered it in this clash. During his previous trip, in 2012, he could not recognize the place because this afternoon, there was little visibility. "Now, thanks to what Lautaro showed me from his own positions, I have no doubt that it was the rock against which we fought." It was a mobilizing event to see where the Lautaro section had a well-covered rock shelter where to sit and fire without being detected, it's fascinating to get together and ask each of talking about his people and being able to find the equipment used by the soldiers during the war, "Marc explains.

Everyone was in the place where they were facing each other. Laughing, they simulated shooting. And they got even closer: where, 37 years ago, they tried to commit suicide, they have now exchanged their berets.