Pedro Marangoni - Option for the Sword

Option for the Sword

pedro marangoni

Translated by Robert Anderson

Option for the Sword

Written By pedro marangoni

Copyright 2020 pedro marangoni

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

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Translated by Robert Anderson

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"All men dream, but not in the same way. Those who dream at night, in the deepest corners of their minds, wake up at dawn to discover that it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they can fight for their open-eyed dreams and make them a reality. That is what I did."

T.E. Lawrence, "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"

PREFACE

A t the beginning of the 1970's, we had two clear and opposing policy options. I chose the one that best represented the way of life I inherited from my ancestors, who helped, with the freedom of democracy, to build a Civilization that gave everyone the opportunity to work, not the forced leveling of beguiling but utopian Socialism. This Civilization had an enemy making a full attack: why wait for it to come to our house, to our country?

Why not fight it wherever you were? With the strength of my youth, I opted for the fight, I opted for the sword ...

Our planet was in the middle of the Cold War, the euphemism for the hot, bloody confrontation between the US and the USSR, hypocritically outsourced and spread out over dozens of seemingly local small wars, and we were living the paradox of watching the US confront and meddle in the internal affairs of its allies. Utopianism, naive optimism, and historical ignorance of other peoples made the Kennedy administration stumble at every step taken in the name of the self-determination of peoples, based on a paternalistic and inconsequential anti-colonialist concept, it being forgotten that the United States was the result of colonial domination. In search of African support in the Cold War, the most powerful nation on earth decided to match forces with allied countries that were anti-communist but still maintaining their colonies in Africa. It financed and instigated barbaric terrorism against the white settlers, especially in Angola, a Portuguese colony where, as in other Portuguese possessions, they had lived in peace and in slow but continuous progress without the predation that characterized other colonialist nations.

The Portuguese, always with his back to Europe, almost thrown overboard by his ever-present and only neighbor, Spain, felt more African than European in his adventurous life, which led him to build an Empire that reached all the way to China. Salazar, a proud ruler with a profound historical idea of Portugal in the world, reacted strongly when confronted with Holden Roberto's UPA massacres in northern Angola, reclaiming the territory in a few months in a remarkable feat of arms, given the distance of the events and the few resources that it had. In Africa, the West and the Iron Curtain faced each other with the visible victory of the USSR, often facilitated by Kennedy's misguided intervention. And the Portuguese colonial war extended over three fronts: Guinea, Angola and Mozambique. Western values were at stake, and it was into this theater of war that I plunged without thinking of political inconsistencies, but only willing to fight the real fight, to destroy the enemy wherever I was and to occupy the ground. To defend my homeland, Brazil, in Africa!

At the age of 23, I was a military pilot and a paratrooper, but would have to learn to fight with my feet on the ground in the infantry if I wanted to survive ... I accepted the challenge, and the years that followed exceeded even my wildest dreams.

From the Brazilian Air Force to infantryman in the French Foreign Legion; from instructor of physical education to head of the militias in the colonial war in Mozambique; from reconnaissance pilot to commander of an Armored Group in the civil war in Angola; from guerrilla to commando trainer in Rhodesia; from information agent in Spain to "reactionary writer" in Portugal ...

Escaping from ambushes, pursued as a dangerous outcast, I became a legionnaire again, this time on the island of Fuerteventura, off the shore of Spanish Sahara. It was a cycle that ended in eight years of fighting on two continents in eight countries under seven flags.

Table of Contents

PREFACE

THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

MOZAMBIQUE

RHODESIAZAIRE

ANGOLA

IN THE INFORMATION WAR

MOZAMBICAN RESISTANCE

THE SPANISH FOREIGN LEGION

PHOTOS and MAPS

C HAPTER I

THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

M id 1972, Paris.

Suitcase in my left hand, looking back at Fontenay-sous-Bois as a world to forget. Steady and resolute as always when I feel weak and indecisive, I approach Fort de Nogent, the forbidding and squat Foreign Legion Information Office.

A smile."Don't be an idiot! The Legion hasn't existed for about twenty years!!"

A Legionnaire First Class with his indescribable white cap comes up to me, unaware of the fact that he "has not existed for more than twenty years," according to my Air Force colleagues.

Volunteer?

Yes.

Come with me!

The five words are enough to lead me to a German adjutant in charge of recruitment. Your French is regular, your past somewhat less so ... We talked a bit. Ask me about Hitler, he grins broadly, letting his memories wander a bit, settling into his chair.

Some technical questions; I present my absolutely unnecessary documents stored in an envelope with all the personal papers that can identify me. I unwillingly become Pablo Riveira, born in Sant-Anna(?), Brazil, in 1951. Having been born in 1949, I gain two years of life without any effect for me, the adjutant reports with amusement. I couldn't keep my real name.

A double-edged sword: anyone looking for Pedro finds only Pablo, but no one will ask about Pablo in the event of "accidents", which are common in the Legion.