by Al Venter
But then, he added, ‘It’s the mistakes we worry about.’
Battalion headquarters at San Miguel, our base (or more commonly, the cuartel), was a fort in the old tradition that might well have featured in one of those movies originally made about Mexico’s Pancho Villa.
The walls, 15 feet high, were painted in a gaudy combination of brown, green and yellow dazzle. The corners rose into French Foreign Legion machicolations and this Disneyland effect could not have been intentional since it had been built more than a century ago to defend the eastern part of the country when insurrection was endemic.
Over the main gate was a sign: yellow letters on black:
BATALLON DE INFANTERIA DE REACCIÒN IMMEDIATA.
The name Arce (pronounced Arcey) commemorated one of the fathers of the nation, General Manuel José Arce. It was a tough, efficient special unit that had seen its share of action in the war and, until then, hadn’t disgraced itself.
Security here too was tight. A strongly held sandbagged guard post about 50 yards from the main entrance commanded access to two roads leading directly to the fort. Almost always, the guards looked as if they expected trouble. It was an exposed position and they were occasionally sniped at, although that didn’t stop mothers and sisters from hanging about outside while waiting for a chance to visit their menfolk.
Once inside the great doors, things were more relaxed. Soldiers not on duty lounged about in T-shirts and shorts playing board games or futbol on the soccer field out back. Much of the rest of the area was dominated by cavernous warehouses which also served as barracks. Officers were billeted more comfortably near the battalion HQ, set somewhat apart. All windows in the outer walls were covered with wire mesh for protection, though occasionally someone would manage to throw a grenade over the walls.
I was surprised how crude the barracks were, terribly overcrowded and none too clean. The men slept in long rows of stacked iron beds; three, four, even five levels high. There was almost no space for stowing uniforms or equipment and the troops made little heaps of their belongings along the walls. Anything of value was carried in pouches on their belts.
We ate with the troops and the food was execrable. Even in the officers’ mess the cuisine was deadly dull; again mostly beans. The colonel, as we’d been made aware before we arrived, preferred to eat out.
It was at the Arce Battalion headquarters that I first saw large numbers of men who had become landmine casualties.
‘Why don’t you send the crippled ones home? They’re no longer of any use to you in this war,’ somebody asked our escort, a major.
He answered without hesitation:
The first and most important reason why they are still here is that they are mostly peasant boys from this area. If we sent them back to their villages in the mountains, they’d be fingered as having fought against the guerrillas… obviously they would be killed.
More important, this base – this camp – was their home before it all happened. If they want to go, of course they can. At any time. Meanwhile, they stay here. We’re happy to have them.
In any event, he added, they were family, and the unit took some pride in looking after them. ‘Maybe some time there will be money and we can get some equipment to help them.’
The battalion had a proud combat record. Situated as it was in one of the most contested zones of the war – with Nicaragua just across the bay – there was a lively esprit de corps. Every evening at stand-to the men would sing the regimental chorus, lustily and with good effect. It was stirring stuff and could be heard by everybody in town.
Every one of these younger compañeros (few of whom had reached their majority age) willingly went about his duties. That could not always be said for some of the other units we visited. If one were to judge by the number of Arce crests about (a yellow dagger on green surrounded by red) each one of them understood exactly where his loyalties lay.
El Ejercito Vivira. Mientras Viva La Republica was the battle cry. It, too, was blazoned in bold yellow letters above the main gate.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Patrol in No Man’s Land
John Hoagland on the war in El Salvador: ‘I don’t believe in objectivity. Everyone has a point of view. But I won’t be a propagandist for anyone. If you do something right, I’m going to take your picture. If you do something wrong, I’m going to take your picture also.’
During the Vietnam War, John Hoagland filed for and received conscientious objector status. Paradoxically, nine years after that war’s end, he was killed in El Salvador by a bullet from an American M60 machine-gun.
ABOUT A WEEK AFTER ARRIVING in El Salvador, several of us were taken by a Huey ‘Mike’ helicopter to one of the small settlements in the north of Morozan Province, where we were to join a company of soldiers of the Arce Battalion. Our squad included Bob MacKenzie, cameraman Kumst, Paul Foley, and a handful of others, but not ‘Sweet Michael’.
The 20-minute hop above 3,000 feet was instructive; we flew just high enough to avoid small-arms fire, though that placed us within what Harry Claflin casually called the SAM-7 envelope. Envelope or not, it was the first time we’d been able to examine clearly the terrain we were working in, for it had been overcast before.
The mountains near San Miguel were almost all volcanic, though most were extinct. Others emitted intermittent puffs of smoke and apparently some had recently erupted. Every day slight tremors could be felt. The biggest volcano of them all, Cacaguatique, sat dormant but ominously brooding near the coast, its peak perpetually in cloud or surrounded by sulphur fumes. Recent lava emissions were visible on its flanks though nobody would hazard a guess as to when the somnolent beast would go active again.
Before we left, we’d been told to prepare for a long haul. We’d walk in column from dawn to dusk for three or four days, said MacKenzie and our route would lead us into the same mountains we were now traversing by chopper. The idea was to take only bare essentials, together with as much water as we could manage, as weight was a factor. The army would supply the rest, Bob disclosed, though he warned that it would be tough. ‘Take your malaria tablets’, he added. ‘If you don’t, the mosquitoes will devour you, it’s that bad!’ That said, we didn’t have a mosquito net between us.
San Miguel, as with quite a few other towns in the interior of El Salvador, was dominated by a volcano; none were dormant and many tended to constantly emit fumes. (Author’s collection)
The Huey dropped us in a clearing in the forest that seemed to stretch all the way to the foothills. It was an unusual feature in a country where so much of the terrain seemed densely overgrown. Once it had been a dairy farm, but the cattle were gone, all eaten, either by the troops or the insurgents.
The pilot chose his LZ carefully, principally because one of the army units on the ground would provide us with cover. As in Vietnam, choppers in this war were most vulnerable when in the flare or lifting off. Once down, the pilot kept his machine on the ground only long enough for passengers to disembark, perhaps load a casualty or two and then take-off again. Throughout, the door-gunners ranged their twinbarrelled 7.62s across the surrounding countryside.
First Lieutenant Carlos Alfredo Soto came forward to greet us, his light-brown face smudged with sweaty lines of camouflage paint. An M16 was cradled in one arm, the other held the straps of a brown canvas map case.
‘You are very welcome’, he said as he shook hands with each of us in turn. Youthful, energetic and obviously on top of what was happening around him just then, he seemed genuinely pleased to have us with him. His English was the best we’d heard yet.
‘Come this way’ he called. ‘We’ve got coffee.’ Lieutenant Soto led the way to a small temporary base that had been set up in a clearing next to some old buildings. Most were covered in graffiti. One of the signs read: Soldato no Defendas Altos Ricos. Another was a commemoration: Viva El 55 Aniversario de PCS: the 55th anniversary of the Communist Party of El Salvador.
Half a dozen soldiers got up off their
haunches to extend a welcome. All were dressed in the same wavy green and brown camouflage uniforms and carried American automatic weapons. Their webbing was similar to that used by the Yanks in Vietnam and well suited to the tropics. An 81mm mortar tube was propped up against a tree trunk, but the bombs had been discretely stowed a short distance away. Another officer was talking loudly into a field radio with a map spread out on the dirt between his legs.
The coffee was a cinch, prepared in an old aluminum kettle balanced precariously over a small fire. (‘Not too much smoke’, suggested the lieutenant.) Tin mugs, freshly scrubbed, suddenly appeared – we were apparently the second or third lot to use them – and Paul pulled a packet of biscuits from his kit. This was a good start.
The column we’d joined was larger than usual for this kind of highcountry patrol: about 100 men all told. They were in constant touch with base and they could have a ‘Mike’ over us in 30 minutes.
Soto reckoned that he would welcome some contact, but he had to be wary of overextending his lines. The rebels sometimes liked to attack in great charges of 300 or 400 at a time, occasionally more. Although a government patrol in the interior had never been overrun – in contrast to some towns – there were times when it had been close. Whenever there were attacks, he assured us, there had been casualties.
FMLN guerrillas had overwhelmed some army and naval bases in that fashion, attacking in depth, and always at night, he explained. The La Unión naval base, not far from where we’d been put down, was mentioned. ‘So I never allow the men to extend beyond 400 yards. Then we can consolidate quickly if we have to. And of course I can call in air cover.’
Standard patrol routines in El Salvador’s so-called ‘Red Areas’ were rigorously applied. The men were taught never to bunch up or stand about in groups. There might be snipers in the area and they could be very accurate, he assured us. Any river or valley crossing was well reconnoitred beforehand. That usually involved a small scout group that would make a bridgehead before the main body arrived.
‘Still, we have to be cautious… there is always a danger of ambush… it’s necessary for the patrol to work to an efficient routine’, were Soto’s words.
The American influence was definitely there, MacKenzie noted. Many of the procedures perfected in Vietnam were now being applied to this Central American conflict.
‘And the guerrillas?’
It was a serious business, Lieutenant Soto replied. He didn’t need to elaborate.
Before we’d left the barracks at San Miguel, a medical helicopter had brought in a soldier with a gaping wound in his thigh. The femur had been shattered and the right side of his body was riddled with splinters. He’d already lost a lot of blood and the man was in great pain despite a morphine doubledose. Any more and it could have affected his heart.
They laid him on the stone floor of the medical room and it wasn’t long before he was lying in a pool of his own blood. To our untrained eyes, it seemed that he would die. He’d taken the full force of a POM-Z grenade that had been primed as a booby-trap inside the door of a building. That was within a mile or two of where we then were.
Government troops were generally willing, loyal to their commanders and efficient. Were that not the case, the rebels would have overrun the country soon enough. It never happened. (Author’s collection)
‘His own stupidity!’ said the officer, obviously annoyed at the loss of one of his men which he regarded as unnecessary. ‘He should have looked! Each one of them has been trained for that kind of thing.’
Lieutenant Soto’s men were a mixed bunch. Some carried 31/2½inch bazookas, the same M20 ‘Super Bazooka’ that Jane’s Infantry Weapons describes as being of ‘elderly design’. Nevertheless, they were useful weapons in this kind of primitive country and if not always adequate for retaliation, useful in a tight spot.
While the rebels had the more versatile RPG-7, the men with the M20s were pleased with what they’d been issued, especially since the weapons were made of aluminium and relatively light. Also, they could be dismantled when not in use. According to the instruction manual, the maximum practical range was a bit more than 1,100 yards, though I’ve yet to see it hit anything at that distance.
There were also a number of M60 general-purpose machine-guns spread along the length of the column. Those hauling them would spread-eagle their 7.62mm ammunition belts across their chests and over their shoulders. To the casual observer, it looked glamorous, but was it practical? Probably not, but as in most Third World conflicts, the image was appropriately macho and the men had faith in their Gringo weapons, though with all that ammunition, these were inordinately heavy loads to lug across mountains.
When questioned about an enemy presence, the lieutenant was candid. There was no doubt there were guerrillas around, ‘but you won’t spot them easily’, said Soto. He swung an arm expansively about the countryside. ‘There!’ he pointed across a rare stretch of open ground at a tree-line some distance away. ‘And there’, indicating a valley at the edge of our vision, ‘and there’, at the mountains nearest us. ‘Everywhere!’ he added with emphasis and we had to smile because the way he talked, we were surrounded…
‘You saw what took place this morning?’ he asked. We nodded. ‘Well it can happen again. It will, if not today, then tomorrow. Or the day after… that’s the way this war goes’, he declared.
Lieutenant Soto was not the typical Central American conscript officer. Well-educated and reflecting some of the attributes of the class into which he’d been born, he intended to become an architect when the war was over. ‘Much to rebuild!’ he said.
His was a rich family, with land in the west. He’d been to a private school in Mexico City where English was compulsory. After having been commissioned in the army he’d done a few months at an American military school on the East Coast, but wouldn’t say where. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d have liked the rebels to get to know about, as if they didn’t already.
‘What’s the strength of the rebel force here?’ somebody asked. Soto was vague: a hundred, maybe 200. He had his ideas, but there was nothing specific.
The FMLN was obviously in the region in some strength, for when we passed through a little village in the afternoon and his men asked the usual questions, the campesinos were uncooperative. Some were aggressive, every face a portrait of grief. They told us only enough to get us on our way again.
‘You see for yourself what they think of us’, he said after we’d taken off again. ‘They are frightened… the guerrillas are nearby.’
I was glad to be out of there.
Once we’d begun walking, it became a hard slog. I’d taken the trouble to get myself into shape, but already I felt done-in and it was only midday. I had to compete with men half my age who’d been nurtured from childhood in these mountains: most were local boys.
We followed no determined route. Soto indicated to the north-east on his map and the man at point went off in that general direction. He wanted to reach a particular village before nightfall: Carlos somethingor-other. He knew the people there and said it was safe, or reasonably so.
Nothing in the war, he stressed several times then and later, was really secure. It was all a question of degree, he suggested. And preparedness. He’d been instructed by the colonel back in San Miguel to see us through it all safely and he was taking no chances.
So we walked. Within three hours I had my first cramp. I sat down for a little while and said nothing because you don’t want to let the side down. The undulating hills were the worst. We often had to climb out of gulleys and ravines using our hands. There was also the heat, a hothouse clammy humidity that made my clothes stick to my body, as if I had been doused by a bucket of warm water.
There came a moment when I sought the first bit of shade ahead and lingered. Then one of the soldiers nudged me on. There was always a note of urgency in their voices.
The column marched at good speed considering that it was supposed to be a ‘casual’ four-day p
atrol. Once they were on their way, the men stretched the pace. Taking pictures became difficult. I was beginning to lag and it worried me. That’s when Paul came to my rescue and took my pack, the one that MacKenzie had offered to carry earlier. I declined the offer the first time but I didn’t hesitate when he suggested it again.
Every hour or so, the column halted. Then some of the men would light up a cigarette or throw themselves to the ground for a ten-minute break while others spread about on the perimeter. We all sought shade and even in those few minutes some of the troops would fall asleep: these youngsters had adapted well to a rigorous routine and they made good use of sparse opportunities.
When we reached the intended village late that afternoon, I was exhausted. In about 90 minutes it would be dark. Lieutenant Soto dispersed his men carefully and indicated strongpoints and who would be responsible for what. Wrist watches had been allotted to section leaders before the squad left San Miguel (very few El Salvadorian soldiers could afford such accoutrements, even if they were essential) and the men knew their duties. But first, he sent out several patrols to look for evidence of an enemy presence: fresh tracks or food wrappers would be enough, Soto reckoned.
We ‘slept’ – for want of a better word – that night in a tiny hamlet of about 20 adobe and leaf-roofed buildings clustered round a small square. The village, one of the older settlements, lay on a gentle slope in the foothills surrounded by some big trees that ran in a ragged line along what would have been the main drag. Some of these were traditional forest giants, gnarled and scarred. Others had been stunted by wire, or had spikes driven in to hold a cable or to support a wall. Bunches of onions hung between the leaves of those closest to ‘town’.
Pigs were everywhere. Since the rebels like to help themselves when they passed through, I was surprised that there were still so many around. Once there had been cattle, herds of them everywhere, but now there were few left, which was a pity because, as in Africa, livestock in Central America is a moveable asset.