Malvinas: the letter of a girl who changed the life of a soldier

In the middle of the war, an 11-year-old girl wrote to a fighter; it was the seed of a friendship that still lasts

VILLA CACIQUE, Buenos Aires.- On May 21, 1982, a letter changed the life of soldier Daniel Verón. I was in a trench at Puerto Argentino, in the

Falkland Islands

, while the English bombs destroyed everything in its path. "If they gave you the choice between a food and a letter, there was no doubt we had chosen the letter," he recalls. The words of an 11-year-old girl from a lost city in Buenos Aires gave her the hope and the strength to come back alive on the continent. Thirty-seven years later, they are neighbors and best friends.

"There are many stories of

Malvinas

But none of them are like that, "says 56-year-old Verón, while she is lodging a companion in her house in Villa Cacique, in the Benito Juárez party, alongside María Gabriela Suárez, born here at 48. It is his author, the letter and the one who is responsible for the fact that this veteran has rebuilt his life in this city. "Maria was 11 years old when the language teacher of the school no. 19 entrusted a task to the whole clbad: write a letter for the soldiers to fight a war that many in this locality did not understand.

"I remember what I saw on the news: a line of people distributing chains and jewels," recalls Suarez. Villa Cacique is a small town surrounded by hills where siesta is respected and the activity centered on the cement factory. Cars have their keys inside, bikes are left in the driveway and neighbors intersect in a busy procession for shopping. It counts today 5000 inhabitants. From the mail of this city, a letter was sent that would change the life of a soldier to thousands of kilometers.

On April 7, 1982, Verón was summoned to the 6 th Mechanized Infantry Regiment of Mercedes, a city of Buenos Aires. "You have to go, they call you," his father told him when he went to visit him at the carpentry where he worked at Merlo. They were few words, but enough. The next day he was at Campo de Mayo, an hour and a half from his home. He was there for three days. His family had no phone and when they went to visit him, he had just taken the plane to the islands. "My mother brought me homemade bread, we could not say goodbye," he confesses, his throat tight.

On April 13, he arrived in the Falklands. His position was at the airport. His job was to unload ammunition from the aircraft. "You do not understand that you are in the war before hearing a bomb," he sums it up. These sounds of war cross your thoughts. English artillery was relentless and routine. On May 5, they sent him to the front line five kilometers from Puerto Argentino. There, he dug his well and stayed most of his time on the islands. "In 70 days, I was able to remove the boots once," he says. "In the war, you pray to see the sunrise again," he adds.

The memories of the war lead him to those days of lead where it always rained and where hunger was felt. "At night, he seemed to watch a movie, the sky turned orange because of flares and smoke bombs," he says. The Sea Harrier and Vulcan flew over his head more than once. On the islands, with the approach of winter, the climate has become more hostile. "In the trench, you were wet all the time," he says.

Provisions were rare. "We learned to eat duck," he says. Every day they went hunting. At noon when he picked one, he saw a Harrier pbad and a Roland missile doubling it. "I saw how it went all over the sky – it was a beautiful sunny day and the explosion was huge," he says.

On May 21, his birthday, his comrades from Puerto Argentino were waiting to greet him and take a cup of hot milk. Remember that walk well. "I spoke to God, I asked him for my mother not to suffer for me," he says. The furriel, a soldier in charge of mail delivery, saw it on his arrival. He gave her a telegram from his family saying, "Happy birthday, everything is fine". This soldier noticed that Daniel was waiting for something else and gave three letters "to the anonymous soldier", as we knew them in the schools.

"María Gabriela's letter changed my days in the war," he says. Written on a scuffed file, the girl told him that she lived in a small town, but beautiful and who surely would not know the Falklands. Downstairs he finished with a sentence that determined Veron's life on the island: "Every day I pray for you."

"It strengthened me, made me want to go home," he says. At night, in his trench, near a lamp, answered him. This letter crossed the icy waters, was in Santa Cruz and flew from there to reach the post office of Villa Cacique. Maria's parents were cautious, but they called her daughter. "I could not believe that one soldier answered me," he recalls. In the city, news of the war has come to a standstill. For a long time, this letter from Veron was kept secret. "They were scared," says Maria in tears. The possibility that this distant soldier did not come back alive was true.

containment

On June 14, 1982, Verón handed over his FAL and his property to a Royal Navy. Among them was Maria's letter. The return to the continent has been difficult. "They did not want to take me by train because I did not have money to buy my ticket," he says. This girl's words did not let him sleep. The Tomasi family, who lived and still live in front of Maria's house, knew about the letter they had received. Before the silence of the family, they decided to get involved. They responded to Daniel by offering him help and the opportunity to come to Villa Cacique to know the city and the girl who had written this inspiring letter.

On the occasion of Easter 1983, Daniel went there for the first time. He arrived by train to Tandil and Oscar Tomasi went to get him. At Villa Cacique, he was received as a hero. The story that began in Puerto Argentino on a frosty morning in May a year ago, while she was reading a letter from a sixth grade student, was closed when she was not in school. she met Maria and her family. "I could not believe that my letter had reached Malvinas, she is still very strong for me today," she says.

"I ran to see him," Maria remembers. His parents, who had chosen precaution, invited Daniel to sleep at home. Everyone was waiting for his account of the experiences on the islands. They woke him up with a coffee con leche and an Easter egg. "I first felt the relief of being able to thank him and have changed my life," Daniel says. From this visit, relations with the Suárez family, and especially with María, were fluid. "At my fifteenth birthday, at my wedding, Daniel was still there," she confesses.

From March 1983 to 2006, Verón lived in Merlo. When he divorced, he went back to where his steps had been dammed. He went to live at Villa Cacique. Here he has formed a new family, he has five children. She does solidarity work, she is a counselor and gives lectures on Falklands in schools. María lives less than six streets from home, is married, has two children and works as a cashier in a market. Everyone knows her as "the girl in the letter" and sees each other every day.

"Having read this letter in the trench is the best thing that happened to me in the post-war period," says Daniel.

The draft of the first missive

The original was seized by English soldiers

Cacique Villa, April 22 To the soldiers of the fatherland.

Dear soldiers from here, I send you this letter of thanks for the defense of the Malvinas Islands.

I would like to meet you, but I can not go that far.

I pray for you every night, my family also prays.

Villa Cacique is not so big, but it's beautiful. Everything I see on television gives me sorrow and happiness, depending on what I see.

The 6th grade B of school No. 19, Luciano Fortabat, thanks them for their work.

I say goodbye affectionately and I wish you the best of luck for all.

An Argentine heart

Maria Gabriela Suarez