Share it on:

Crosses of Military Merit. Soldiers with Red Decoration.

Soldiers with Red Decoration.

This question does not arise anymore: where will be written down the story of those soldiers who shared our days and who are tracing with their truths the most modern epic poem of the Spanish Army? Perhaps poets and novelists will arrive soon in order to sum them up; however, in the meantime, their adventures will be collected in this section of our webpage.

I´ll tell you (III)

The Red Crosses of the Last Men in the Philippines

Lunes 25 de noviembre de 2019

I´ll tell you III

Anniversaries create trails through history which remained asleep with the old taste of all that which lies forgotten. Nobody could imagine the number of names which lie neglected but deserve to be remembered. However, no one could ignore that only literature, in its poetic or novelistic forms (or cinema) is capable of focussing this collective memory, whether or not the story is true.

Martes 19 de noviembre de 2019

I´ll tell you II

he series ‘Soldiers with red distinction’ from the Land newspaper is still under siege in Baler. I’ll tell you that getting out of there with honours was very difficult. Other detachments in the Philippines with more men did not manage it and surrendered in a number of days. But Baler was different. .

Martes 19 de agosto de 2019

I´ll tell you

I´ll tell you that 337 days can be longer than 120 years. I´ll tell you how, 120 years ago, in 337 days and 336 nights, the defenders of the San Luis de Tolosa church in Baler earned two Red Crosses each. The first was a result of their heroic behaviour in defence of the town until the 7th of August 1898, when they drove back the enemy’s attempt to raid and burn the church, and the second was earned by their heroic defence from the 8th of August 1898 until the 2nd of June 1899, as stated by two Royal Orders from the 28th of September 1899 (Official Journal no. 215), in consideration of the important services provided by the Army’s forces stationed in Baler.

Friday, May 17, 2019

Grenades fly in Bengui

In Bangui, at that time, skirmishes and gunfire between the warring factions had become commonplace. The sound and the fury ring through the maze of streets every night. Members of the Special Operations Group have already spent months in the capital of the Central African Republic. They are stationed in the compound of an abandoned police station which has been ceeded by the local authorities. This is their base. Here, waking up to the sound of gunfire and exploding hand grenades is common.

Misión: recoger el cuerpo de un compañero caído

Monday, April 22, 2019

Misión: Collecting the body of a fallen comrade

After many missions in Afghanistan - since 30 June 2009 in the area of operations - and many hours of combat, the Liaison and Observation Unit (LOU) XIII, from the Spanish army’s Special Operations Command (SOC), is assigned a different mission: they must support the Afghan police, who are going to collect the body of a colleague who was murdered in an insurgency attack that same morning in Gueira Shuri.

Thursday, march 14, 2019

A hidden mine

Captain Fernando Álvarez knew where he was going. One of those places full of broken glasses, with streets and roads stratched by shrapnel, doors battered down and aways open, and lifeless windows.

Thursday, February 21,2019

Only the wind goes up to Ludina

The date is not marked by time, but by wind, that either lets it pass unpertubed or fills it with facts and wounds. Movement is started by the 13th Company of the Manoeuvring Battalion 'Badghis', that set off from the 'Ruy González de Clavijo' base, in Qala-I-Naw, to Sang Atesh, in Ludina.

Wednesday, January 16,2019

Crossing Tito’s Bridge

The Bosnian Croats have eventually agreed to hand in the medicines they keep at their hospital so they can be taken to the Mostar Muslim hospital, so badly needed by the wounded Bosnians. The talks have not been easy. They wanted journalists there. The image war also plays a role among the Bosnia-Herzegovina disasters. They have resigned themselves to the public information team the Spanish Ministry of Defence has deployed there to film the collection of medicines and the inside of the hospital.

Tuesday, December 11,2018

It won’t be long until it’s four o’clock

The convoy is formed by five vehicles from the Bommel Quick Response Force. They’re heading to a mission to provide safety in the Shindand area, not far from the Harut river. It’s February, and the cold is noticeable in the shivering of the dry, small hawthorns that still survive in the winter anchored to the ground. She knows that winter and movement aren’t good friends. The time it takes to cross the valley hints at this idea, leaving strokes on the mud, wrapped in the dust cloud made by the vehicles.

Tuesday, November 13,2018

Sabzak Pass (III)

The sun sets and rises, the moon comes and goes. Two nights have passed, and with the dawn, Sabzak recognises the men of the Tajik warlord, the Tukus. It also recognises the Spanish soldiers, who, despite not having been able to escape insomnia, are paying attention to the new information they are receiving.

Tuesday, October 16,2018

Sabzak Pass (II)

The morning of 2 September 2009 starts shrouded in calm in the vicinity of the Hamam mines. It is well known that Sabzak Pass that connects Badghis (in the north) and Herat (in the south) is a crucial logistical route between these two provinces...

Wednesday, August 8,2018

The Crossing of Sabzak, a place which stopped time (I)

There are places named after combat, there are places where battles take place, there are places which see the first and the last bullet fly by. There are places, arteries of all kinds of social contact, a passage obligated to travellers and goods, which can never be dominated by extortionists, insurgencies or men of war. There are places which seem to spin around the planet, but occasionally time stops them to involve them in the roar of the battle. There are places like the crossing of Sabzak in Afghanistan.

Monday, July 16, 2018

The bullets whizz by

It is 5.38 in the morning, 14th June 2008. From the ridge one sees the Khaikhane locality. It is a very hot night, the kind of heat which takes hold of the Afghanistani land from the month of June and doesn´t let go until autumn arrives. It is a dark night. The heat multiplies with the weight of all the equipment: bulletproof vests, several magazine holders with magazines full of bullets, helmets and other weapons.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Enemy at the gates

No one knows what day it is. It is the dawn of April the 4th of 2004. When the day was long and the hours were coming and going by the hand of all of those who found themselves on both sides of the Al Andalus base in Najaf, and all the sands of Iraq converged in front of its doors. When the Cavalry arrives at the detachment, it is not surprising to see some fortly Iraqi soldiers equipped with riot control equipments. The outside is quiet at the moment and the Iraqi riot police are resting under the little shade of the day. The 4th of the 4th of the year 04 is a hot day.

Monday, May 21, 2018

A brave heart

The blood that makes hearts beat and that is the light and the prodigy of existence came from the air. There were not a few injured people who were in the throes of death, holding on to that one hope, dreaming about the arrival of blood plasma and medication, which were so necessary in two hospitals of a conflict Mostar, located each of them in one of the sides separated by the confrontation line: the Bosnian-Muslim hospital and the Bosnian-Croatian hospital; even though no one is unaware that blood does not ask for documentation or papers to give life, nor distinguishes races or religions, nor asks questions whose answer would be hate.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Ten minutes

It is 23:15, Apr. 7th. 2004. Soldier Jorge Trejo is carrying out his guard duty at the lookout post of "España" base in Diwaniyah (Iraq). Ten minutes left and he will finish his task, being aware of the short period of time that it is. Until now the guard duty, as during the night, is quiet and the relay will arrive soon. What are ten minutes! Silence has been his company until now while he was watching, as if he were a clockmaker, all the geometry of the streets, some hurried shapes walking and avoiding the night's abandonment, and some other vehicles which were not strangers in that landscape.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

We all are one

When the second lieutenant was ordered to relieve the Infantry section in Najaf, he knew that this time, it was not his support weapons section's turn; but because of guard and escort reasons, apart from fate, always moving around, all of them were taken to a destination that they did not expect at all. For them, base Al Andalus in Najaf was a break; they would stop making escorts during a lot of hours, and they would provide security in a small and quite base. They called it "the spa" because during one week their tasks consisted in being in guard in turns of four hours, some casual escort, and the rest of the time was spent in doing sports and resting.

Monday, January 22, 2018

Yes to all

This question does not arise anymore: where will be written down the story of those soldiers which shared our days and who are tracing with their truths the most modern epic poem of the Spanish Army? Perhaps, poets and novelists will come soon in order to sum them up; however, in the meantime, their adventures will be collected in the newspaper Tierra. In Bamako (Mali) starts this story.

Spanish Army's Blog

Access to our blog on Wordpress

For further information RRSS

ARMY UNITS

OUTSTANDING LINKS

Información

Enlaces