Assistant Sergeant (R) VGM
Juan Gualberto Vallejos-RI 3 at Wireless Ridge
EDUARDO C.
GERDING
“According to my personal
experience, I can say that I lost the war, but I won my life. "I lost my
right leg on the battlefield to serve my country, but it allowed me to find my
way and the Gospel." 10
Pastor y Veterano de Guerra de Malvinas: «Soy un agradecido de la vida»
(video)-Cultos. https://cultos.ar/index.php/2023/07/12/pastor-y-veterano-de-guerra-de-malvinas-soy-un-agradecido-de-la-vida-video/
In this article I will
describe the traumatic experience of Assistant Sergeant (R) VGM Juan Gualberto
Vallejos during the Wireless Ridge Combat, his severe post-Malvinas crisis and
his extraordinary power of resilience, born from an epiphany in the middle of
the Malvinas peat.
May it be an example for all
our young Argentines.
Juan Vallejos was born on July
19, 1956 in Corrientes Capital into a family made up of his parents and 6 more
siblings. 9
To orient ourselves, the city San
Juan de Vera de las Siete Corrientes has an area slightly larger than Swansea
in south Wales and approximately the same number of inhabitants.
Vallejos joins the Army
Vallejos commented that when
he introduced himself to his father, saying, “I want to pursue a military
career,” he was in his third year at the Technical School Pedro Ferré
in Corrientes. ¨I was not doing very well with my studies when I received
the response from Cámpo de Mayo to present myself to perform and in 1973 I
entered the Argentine Army´s Infantry weapon Non-Commissioned Officers´ school
as a corporal.”
In 1975, Vallejos took an
improvement course and among 200 participants he qualified in the first places
and was invited to access the specialty of military parachutist. After
completing the course he was assigned to the airborne unit in Córdoba. At the age
of 19 he went to fight in the mount of Tucumán under the command of General
Acdel Edgardo Vilas †. 14
“In 1982, when returning from my wedding I prepared myself and went to the Regiment 3 of La Tablada. On April 2nd our units returned to the barracks and we began to equip ourselves as we were going south but no one knew where. On April 11, 1982, after the capture of Malvinas, our unit was mobilized to the south of our country, from El Palomar to Río Gallegos. We arrived that same day and on another plane we left for the Malvinas, arriving around noon.” 2
General Manuel Belgrano Mechanized Infantry Regiment 3
The Battle of Wireless Ridge 3
The complete description of
this battle is beyond the scope of the article but it is essential to highlight
some points that will help us to understand the environment to which Sergeant
Vallejos was exposed. 12
This battle took place on June
13 and 14, 1982 on Wireless Hill east of Isla Soledad, one of the seven
strategic hills near Puerto Argentino.
-Battle of Wireless Ridge-Wikipedia-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wireless_Ridge
The units involved were: The
7th Mechanized Infantry Regiment, whose commander was Lieutenant Colonel Omar
Giménez, the 10th Cavalry Exploration Squadron, the Second Parachute Battalion
(2 PARA) and the Blues and Royal with two FV101 Scorpion light
tanks and two FV 107 armored vehicles Scimitar as well as artillery support
from two batteries of the 29th Royal Artillery Commando Regiment and naval fire
support provided by the 114mm caliber guns of the HMS Ambuscade (F172)frigate.
In the softening fire, the
British artillery fired 6,000 rounds from their 105mm pieces, and when the
paratroopers began their push, they were supported by naval fire and mortars in
addition to the 76mm and 30mm guns mounted on the light tanks.
Lieutenant Colonel David
Chaundler took over as commander of 2 PARA after the death of Lieutenant
Colonel Herbert Jones at the Battle of Green Goose. 5
Second Parachute Battalion (2 PARA)
The 3rd Regiment would play a
very important role in the battle, with Captain Rubén Oscar Zunino's †Company A
counterattacking at Wireless Ridge, and Captain Ramón Alberto Varela's Company
C taking up new defensive positions near the soccer field, just outside the
capital, while Company B of First Lieutenant Miguel Luis Delledone still
maintained its positions off the beaches south of Port Stanley.
Note:
During the British
bombardment, the action of Captain Guillermo Grau of the 7th Regiment stands out,
who with a Mercedes Benz jeep moved through the battered areas, evacuating the
seriously injured soldiers. Despite the deadly enemy fire, Major Hugo Alberto
Pérez Cometto remained among the mortar conscripts until the end of the defense
of the 7th Regiment.
Major Philip Neame's final
assault
Major Philip Neame's D Company
began the final assault from the western edge of Wireless Ridge.
Neame said:
The main thing about Wireless Ridge was that we were the
only company in the whole of that battle that actually had
to assault in the face of organized opposition. We actually
carried out three separate company attacks in that one
night. While waiting
to attack our first position, the
inevitable bit of farce came right on cue. We could barely
identify the objective, and one or two people had doubts if
we were facing the right way.
Major Neame's men took the
first half of the objective after a tough fight against a communications
platoon under the command of Second Lieutenant Jorge Alberto Guidobono
reinforced by a platoon of Argentine paratroopers under the command of Second
Lieutenant Gustavo Alberto Aimar of the Airborne Infantry Regiment 2 General
Balcarce.
British military historian
Martin Middlebrook would write of the action:
This time the Argentines
resisted and fought well and there was a fierce battle for the last part of
Wireless Ridge... D Company almost lost the desire to continue fighting.
Note:
Lieutenant Colonel Víctor Hugo
Rodríguez, head of the first section of Company A of the 3rd Infantry Regiment,
led one of the last Argentine counterattacks against a group of Company D of
the 2nd Para, commanded by Philip Neame. The latter created a foundation that
is dedicated to taking armed forces cadets on excursions to Everest and the
Himalayas. Rodríguez organizes the crossing of the Andes with an association he
founded. Forty years later they met face to face and recounted their episode in
two books: Penal Company of the Falklands. A memoir of the parachute
regiment at war 1982 and Llevando la patria al hombro (Carrying the
country on the shoulder). 11
Former paratrooper Tony Banks,
author of the book Storming the Falklands: My war and after, wrote:
¨As we began to move along the
ridge, a scene from Star Wars erupted with tracer bullets flying everywhere. We
were facing well-armed, well-disciplined and highly motivated enemy soldiers in
good positions¨ 3
Note:
Tony Banks traveled to Buenos
Aires especially to return his trumpet and sheet music to Rene Omar Tabarez
who, at the age of 19, was in the Malvinas as Order Cornet of the Chief of
Regiment No. 25 of the Sarmiento Company of Chubut. The meeting: The warmth and
emotionality of the hug between the soldiers could only be surpassed by the
moment in which the leather case carrying the precious loot was opened. Omar
only managed to say: "I appreciate the gesture of brotherhood of giving
me back my companion who has been absent for 28 years." Tony responded:
"We are both soldiers, and soldiers respect each other, we are human
beings, the war is over, but we both have mental battles to fight."
Banks said: "I was in the Malvinas in January. Before I went I spoke
with specialists who supervised to people who have emotional problems to know
how people react when they go to the islands. I thought it was going to be very
sad but it was an enlightenment, a way to find God. It was like taking a weight
off my shoulders. It is the final stage ¨ 7
Second Lieutenant Darío
Alejandro Selser with his Section of the 7th Infantry Regiment were the last
Argentine soldiers in the Malvinas to surrender.
Awards
For bravery displayed at
Wireless Ridge, 2 Para was awarded three Military Crosses, a Military Medal and
a Distinguished Conduct Medal. The 29th Commando received a Military Cross.
Philip Neame was Mentioned in Despatches.
Major Guillermo Rubén Berazay would obtain "The Argentine Nation for
Valor in Combat" for his conduct in preparing the street-by-street
defense of Puerto Argentino.
The casualties
The Argentines had 25 dead and
125 wounded. The British had 3 dead and 11 wounded (including 3 SAS/SBS commandos and 6 members of 3 PARA), 4 mortarmen
with broken ankles and 4 assault boats destroyed. 3
Vallejos in the Malvinas
Conflict
In Malvinas, Juan Gualberto
Vallejos was part of the Mechanized Infantry Regiment No. 3 where he held the
position of Group Leader, and had a troop of 11 soldiers at his disposal.
“I fought for 67 days on the islands: from
April 11 to June 14, 1982, when enemy fire hit me. As a result of that I lost
my leg. The combat was on Wireless Ridge, near Puerto Argentino.During an
attack maneuver on the English troops I was wounded in my right leg. That
injury compromised the femoral bone of my leg and left me unconscious for a
period of four hours in the intense cold. My partner José Ramírez applied a
tourniquet to me at the scene and then I was taken to the Argentine hospital on
the island. There they tried to rescue my leg, but it was not possible and I
suffered the amputation.” 10
In the midst of
the conflict Vallejos sought answers to his
questions and
found them in Psalm 121: I will lift up mine
eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh
my help. My help
cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. 2
The injury
¨The rifle bullet I received cut my femoral artery and crossed the center of my knee, it was like an electric shock. Instantly I felt I was short of breath and Comrade José Ramírez helped me in complete darkness. I asked him to make a tourniquet for me with my handkerchief and then I lost consciousness. It was the night of the greatest combat in the Malvinas, the last, June 13, 1982. The temperature was 17 degrees below zero, snow falling around, with vomiting, dying and chills. As best I could, I asked him to get me out of there, I saw that he left and I lost consciousness again¨
Femoral artery
Geisel School of
Medicine at Darmouth-Department of Medical Education.
https://anatomy.host.dartmouth.edu/HAE/Lowerextremity/tutorials/vessels/femoral.html
The spiritual experience
¨I had the sensation that my
soul was detaching itself from my body and I found myself moving through a very
dark place and I heard a voice that told me: 'This is what you have done until
today'. Then I saw the movie of my life and it was no good, even though I received
the holy communion, I was an altar boy, I loved my parents, I got married in
church, I was willing to give my life for my country. It took me years to
understand.” 2,13
Marriage crisis
“One day I asked my wife, what
does it feel like to walk with two feet because I lost that feeling and yet I
don't feel myself less than anyone.”
My wife left me one day in
1986; I asked her not to abandon me, but our relationship was torn apart by
what I myself had contributed to the bad. I realized I was losing what I had
never thought about and it never came back.
At that time I worked at the
Terrabussi factory. Broken to pieces, I went to Corrientes. By then I had
suffered everything: the mutilation and psychiatric problems. People said to
me: 'poor Juancito, besides what is happening to him, his wife abandoned him.'
But what I didn't realize was
that I had to look at God who loves us and planned our lives before the
creation of the world, knows us and knows where we are going, knows the dreams,
the pain and the lack of forgiveness." 2
“A meeting was held in
Corrientes, in my grandparents' field, where they began to praise God but I
didn't want to know anything about it. However, in that place God appeared and
I cried like never before in my life because I was worse than when I saw that
movie of my life. God forgave me and made me forgive even the one who had
abandoned me because I understood that everything was because of the bad things
I had sown.
God saved me and made me a new
person, he took away my military arrogance, pride and vanity. I used to be like
that, I wanted to be the best of all, the best paratrooper, commando and
soldier, but a rifle shot made me fall.
When my wife left me I felt
great pain and I couldn't sleep entire nights thinking about what man would she
be with. "I didn't want to live anymore and, in that circumstance God
entered my life to renew me." 2
“Then came the divorce. I
started going to a church and I met a young woman whom I married in 1991 and I
think I learned my lesson because the Lord gave me a new opportunity by giving
me a beautiful wife and three children.
Women are beautiful, but none
like her, because God taught me to love her, value her and honor her every day
of my life, not to raise my hand to her, to respect her, because everything is
possible in her name." 2
Note: 1,4
The most painful experience of
military personnel abandoned by their wives, whatever the cause, has been
widely studied in psychiatry and, in fact, the acronym SWIRL is used to
describe its transitional stages: Shattering (the sensation of
destroyed), Withdrawal, Internalizing, Rage, and Lifting.
In the last stage (Lifting),
anger helps to externalize the pain and, as the energy bubbles outward, lifts the
patient back to life. The patient begins to let it go. Life distracts him and
gradually takes him out of grief. Feels the emergence of a wiser strength for
the painful lessons learned. Immersed in the recovery process the patient prepares
to Love again.
Testimony
-Azambuyo, Ceferino-Charla motivadora
de Veterano de Malvinas-Mirador-234/03/24.
Vallejos has given talks
throughout Argentine territory and even in Mercosur countries, carrying a
message of improvement and resilience, instilling values in young people and the importance of family as
support in childhood and adolescence. 2
“I was 25 years old when the conflict
happened, and thanks to my family I managed to learn the Gospel and the message
that God has for me, which allowed me to overcome psychological, social and
emotional problems, put aside resentment and be able to preach. the Word of the
Lord” 10
“I am going to tell the story
with my truth, which is tough. I don't know what you came to hear, but I have
the feeling that God is going to speak to your heart because I have done many
things in my life and they have affected many people for the worse, but in time
God in his infinite mercy corrected me and gave me a new purpose for myself and
one of them is precisely to visit different cities, provinces and neighboring
nations such as Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, spreading this message.” 2
"There was a before and
after of Malvinas. When I returned to the continent I underwent psychiatric
treatment, and in '86 I was abandoned by my partner and then I hit rock bottom.
It was very difficult but for God nothing is impossible because my life began
to be transformed from having a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. 9
Religion and Resilience
This topic has been addressed
by the French neurologist, psychiatrist and ethologist Boris Cyrulnik, author
of the book Psychotherapy of God: Faith as Resilience. Since 1966,
Cyrulnik has been Director of Studies at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the
University of Sud-Toulon. His work has allowed him to develop the concept of
resilience as a rebirth of suffering.
In his book he relates that a
minority of living skeletons (from a concentration camp) who before the
deportation had never cared about God, suddenly discovered it: Suddenly I
knew that God existed.
The discovery of God is
experienced as an authentic, clear and irrefutable certainty.
The universal God, as felt by
most human beings, manifests itself through a sense of euphoria that lifts us
to the sky above us. According to people and cultures, this feeling is called
"superior force", "guardian angel" or "God who governs
our soul", and it tears us away from the immanence of here below. 6
At present
Currently, in addition to
being a pastor of an Evangelical church, since 2006, Juan Gualberto Vallejos works
at the Generation of Heroes Foundation (in Paso de los Libres), which
provides help to children with different abilities, single mothers, street
children, the elderly, etc. 8
Veterano de
Malvinas visito el Instituto de Formación Penitenciaria-Mendoza
Penitenciaria-18 de agosto 2022.
Assistant Sergeant (R) War
Veteran Juan Gualberto Vallejos with Medical Colonel James Michael Ryan MB, OBE
War Veteran traumatologist who was aboard the RFA Sir Galahad during the
Argentine attack on Bluff Cove on June 8th, 1981. (Kindly
submitted by Medical Col. James Ryan).
Military Health Conferences
about Malvinas which took place at the Argentine
Central Army Hospital ¨Major
Surgeon Dr. Cosme Argerich¨-2016. (Kindly Submited by Medical Colonel James
Michael Ryan MB, OBE War Veteran )
Bibliography
1-Anderson, Susan-SWIRL, the Five
Stages of Abandonment.
2-Azambuyo, Ceferino-Charla motivadora
de Veterano de Malvinas-Mirador-234/03/24.
3-Battle of Wireless Ridge-Wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wireless_Ridge
4-Brito, Janet PhD-Shocked that your
spouse left? Here´s how to recover.PyschCentral.October 21,2022.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to-let-go-of-the-past-and-hurt#recap
5-Chaundler, David Brig-A Commanding officer’s account of the Battle of Wireless Ridge by
Brigadier David Chaundler OBE, formerly Lt Col and CO OF 2 PARA.The Battle for
Wireless Ridge.Airborn Assault ParaData-
6-Cyrulnik, Boris- Psicoterapia de Dios: La fe como resiliencia. Editorial Gedisa ( Barcelona) (titulo original en francés Psychoterápie
de Dieu, Odile Jacob 2017).
7-Devolución de un botín de guerra-Zona Militar-5 de
julio 2010.
https://www.zona-militar.com/foros/threads/devoluci%C3%B3n-de-un-bot%C3%ADn-de-guerra.22398/
8-Fundación Generación de Héroes.
9-La lucha de un veterano de guerra por
reivindicar la ¨heroica gesta¨ de Malvinas-El Once-1 de Abril de 2016.
ttps://www.elonce.com/secciones/sociedad/456705-la-lucha-de-un-veterano-de-guerra-por-reivindicar-la-quotheroica-gestaquot-de-malvinas.htm
10-Pastor y Veterano de Guerra de Malvinas: «Soy
un agradecido de la vida» (video)-Cultos.
11-Pignatelli,
Adrián-Estuvieron enfrentados a muerte en la guerra
de Malvinas y 40 años después presentaron juntos sus libros-INFOBAE-25
Sep 2022.
https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2022/09/25/estuvieron-enfrentados-a-muerte-en-la-guerra-de-malvinas-y-40-anos-despues-presentaron-juntos-sus-libros/
12-Pignatelli,
Adrián-Una misión suicida y el infierno en Wireless
Ridge: el contraataque a todo o nada en el último día de la guerra. INFOBAE-13
de junio 2022.
13-Veterano
de Malvinas visito el Instituto de Formación Penitenciaria-Mendoza
Penitenciaria-18 de agosto 2022.
14-Yofre, Juan Bautista Tata. El combate de Famaillá: del ascenso del
general Acdel Vilas bajo las órdenes de Isabel Perón al fin del ERP en Tucumán.INFOBAE,19
de Mayo 2024-
