Two Sides of Hell - They Spent Weeks Killing Each Other, Now Soldiers From Both Sides of The Falklands War Tell Their Story. Vince Bramley
mad losing up to two years of my life to the Army. I went to the 4th Artillery Parachute Regiment near La Calera and straight away I knew I was into something different. I knew then I was away from my home and family.
‘Suddenly, at the age of nineteen, I am just a piece of crap, a nobody. It was the hard discipline that hit me: eat, sleep, fart only when the military tell you. That first week of induction was a big shock to the system. Two hundred of us were posted within the regiment. I was sent to C Battery, which was broken down into two companies. My boss was Lieutenant Suárez and he was a good officer and was to prove it later. He had golden balls.
‘Training was “dancing” from the start. Reveille was at 5 a.m. and dress in a minute flat. In our dormitory huts things were so cramped half of us dressed while the others washed and then we changed over. Then it was inspection followed by a dance around for three or four hours, marching, saluting, running, anything. Basically, they were just fucking us around. For forty-five days I had this and what I missed most was home. Apart from five days on the ranges and weapons training it was always the same. The food was bad – and I mean bad. There were no tables and we all sat back to back to eat. I remember red insects floating in my food. Tasty! Everyone had the shits, all sitting there on the latrines in a row without any toilet paper. I lost six or seven kilos there.
‘Some guys deserted. Those who were caught went to the calabozo. After our forty-five days of basic training I could march, salute and shoot. They gave us four days’ leave, but my first day was spent travelling home and my last day travelling back, so I spent the other two days eating, sleeping and drinking as much as I could. My haircut made me stand out from everybody else.
‘On my return I had to do another forty-five days of parachute and continuation training. Two mates of mine deserted while on leave. We always had to stand in formation for raising the flag in the morning, then they gave us a pep talk. The parachute training area was two kilometres from our barracks and we had to run there and back every day with our helmets on. We did all our ground exercises and one day they brought out a Hercules C-130, the traditional parachuting aircraft. Three days before our first actual jump we all boarded in jumping order and the plane went round and round the field without actually taking off, but we all had to fall out the doors and roll on the field as if we were actually parachuting.
‘I’ll always remember my first jump. Every Para does. There I am in the aircraft with my balls up to my throat with thinking about it. We’re ordered to get ready, hook up, double-check equipment, tap the helmet of the guy in front to signal everything is OK. We are all standing there staring at the red light, knowing that seconds later it will go green and we’re going to go. My heart was doing overtime; I could hear it pounding inside me. Suddenly it’s “green on” and guys are disappearing out the doors. I’m shuffling to the door. I get there and find myself pushing against the dispatcher’s arm. He’s holding me back. “What the fuck,” I scream at him.
‘It turns out I’m the last one out and we’ve overshot the DZ [drop zone]. Everyone is going to think I’ve lost my bottle. I pleaded with the Air Force sergeant. Here I was, all hyped up and ready to jump, and this bastard has stopped me. On the next pass I got out, falling for three seconds in the slipstream and then I’m in another world: peace, a real sense of peace, just floating down. Unreal.
‘We have a tradition after your first successful jump in which you choose a godfather and everyone baptizes you with cider and flour. I’m a fairly chubby guy so they nicknamed me Yogi Bear. I chose Lieutenant Suárez as my godfather. Once you have done three jumps you get your red beret at a ceremony. I did ten!
‘At the end of this forty-five days of training we are only two thirds of the way through. Normal conscripts do a total of about forty-five days. Because we are Para-artillery we do ninety. But we got fifteen days’ leave before the heavy artillery training and then it was working with howitzers and mortars. As soon as we had done that we went on manoeuvres, firing shells and moving from position to position with the guns, just like they do in a real war, to deal with the enemy changing position.
‘Everything was going well until I accidentally dropped my rifle on our gunpowder bags in a ditch. Apart from feeling like an arsehole, I lost my next leave and was danced by being forced to crawl through thistle and thorn bushes. I was confined to barracks while the rest of them went on leave. I was really pissed off, I can tell you.
‘After all that they made me a clerk in charge of the leave and guard-duty rosters. It wasn’t a bad number and I soon had a good trade going in bribes for changing duties. Everyone hated the 2-4 a.m. duty. A guy nicknamed Dracula used to bribe me with cigarettes and food to cook the duty book. Cigarettes are currency and I could exchange them for anything I wanted. That’s the way it goes, isn’t it? Looking back, it wasn’t a bad number.
‘From time to time we had to do a razia, patrolling the streets near the barracks. It was hard, boring work. At that time in 1981 the terrorists just weren’t around any more – they had gone to ground. We were out, fully armed, in the local square, stopping cars and checking on the drivers and occupants. Sometimes we’d demand a few fags. If a bird was driving we’d irritate the locals – the Cordobezes, we’d call them – by chatting up their women. The rest of our patrol was spent killing time and doing fuck all.
‘We had a guy on attachment to us, a big tough commando from 601 Regiment. One day in the office I forgot to introduce myself – “Parachute soldier Class of 62 Chamorro” – when I was looking for the regiment’s orders. He danced me around his office and then told me to carry on. As soon as my back was turned he sneaked up behind me and put a knife to my throat, saying: “Never drop your guard, soldier. Always be alert.”
‘The bastard ran away during the fighting at Darwin. Ha! There was a story doing the rounds about him at the time that he had killed and gutted a snake and made his soldiers eat it, telling them that when at war a soldier must eat what he can find. Now that is a cruel irony when you bear in mind what happened to us later for trying to eat what we could find on the Malvinas.
‘They began to discharge my intake just before Christmas 1981. Sixty guys went and I was awaiting my turn. Then, on 22 December, orders came through for a parachute jump. Nobody wanted to do it. Lieutenant Suárez was going mad. We jumped from a Fokker on the 23rd and then he began dancing us. He said anyone who fell would stay in camp for Christmas. We crawled through thistle bushes, through mud, ran, jumped – you name it and we did it. I was one of ten guys left on their feet, all covered in dirt and dust. In the end, he gave us two days’ leave.
‘Leave was precious and didn’t come round often enough. One time some of us scored with some girls on a train and arranged to meet them another time. We had to slip out of camp and hitch a ride to their place. We went absent for three days, but my sergeant was delighted we had got our ends away and fined me a coffee and three croissants.
‘Another time the MPs spotted us on a train. We had no leave papers, so we got off at the next station. They chased and chased us. You have to remember that the bastards got a bounty of more leave for every absentee they caught. Anyway, some people hid us in their house and then some Japanese tourists gave us a lift into Buenos Aires in their camper.
‘At the beginning of 1982 we did absolutely fuck all as we waited for discharge. Class of 63, our replacements, began arriving in February. I was told I would be discharged on 30 March, so I went home on leave before returning to the regiment on the 30th. On that day there was a big quilombo [disturbance] in the capital. It was a clear symbol of the unrest which was growing in the country. The Central Union of Workers had organized a protest rally against the government. One of the demonstrators, Dalmiro Flores, was shot dead by the police. I wasn’t really aware of this.
‘Next day, 31 March, I’m still in camp and still in the Army. I went to see my boss and he gave me another eighteen days’ leave. I went back home, where it was quiet and peaceful.
‘Suddenly, about 6 a.m. next morning, my father has the radio on and we hear: ‘Hemos recuperado Las Malvinas.’ [‘We have recovered the Malvinas’]. Then there was marching music. Things didn’t add up until I began to realize the government had ordered the action to divert people’s