Natasha Niebieskikwiat
04/01/2021 4:36 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 04/01/2021 4:36 PM
Thirty-new years later, the Malvinas war continues to throw up stories.
There are tragedies but also joys, like the meeting that Rubén Mendoza and Gladis Taborda just had.
With Argentina and the United Kingdom immersed in the war unleashed after the military landing in the archipelago on April 2, 1982, Gladis and her twin sister, Zulema,
sent a letter to the soldiers assigned to
the islands.
They did not know who it would reach.
But they were part of the platoon of students who, seeking to give support to those young people who were on the war front, sent cookies, chocolates, scarves and letters of affection.
Only a few arrived, among them that of the Taborda sisters.
That letter from the two young women arrived at the time at the hands of Rubén, a soldier who had to fight in the war.
And there were two coincidences: that he was also born in Córdoba and that he had the desire to answer them.
That written response from the BIM 5 soldier
appeared a few months ago forgotten in a memory drawer at Gladis's mother's house.
The soldier Rubén Mendoza with his grandmother and father before going to war.
And it was the kick to try to track him down and find out what was in the life of that man with whom he had come into contact at the beginning of the war.
The search paid off and thirty-nine years later, Gladis and Rubén met.
It was last Sunday, in an unprecedented zoom, that platform that marked communication in times of pandemic.
Clarín
participated in the meeting between the two.
This chronicler was invited by the protagonists and by whoever joined them to that virtual chat on Sunday.
The researcher
Alicia Panero,
who, as if the coincidences were not enough,
had been Gladis's companion at the Córdoba Inmaculada Concepción school.
The reply letter that soldier Rubén Mendoza sent to the twins Gladis and Zulema Taborda from Malvinas.
The reply letter that soldier Rubén Mendoza sent to the twins Gladis and Zulema Taborda from Malvinas.
“Nany dear… while arranging papers I found a letter from a Cordovan soldier, who wrote us from Malvinas !!!
My daughter was moved when I read it again… Year 82, we were finishing school, a very sad year in the family.
Where is that boy ??? ”Gladis wrote to Panero on the Facebook wall.
It was last year.
Panero is very popular on social media.
It happens that he has specialized in investigating stories of the war
.
She is the author of Unknown Soldier, where she delves into the misnamed graves in Darwin's cemetery, which are in the process of being identified.
The reply letter that soldier Rubén Mendoza sent to the twins Gladis and Zulema Taborda from Malvinas.
The reply letter that soldier Rubén Mendoza sent to the twins Gladis and Zulema Taborda from Malvinas.
He also wrote
Invisible Women
, a story about nurses who went to war.
"Gladis Taborda, let's find him.
What a thrill ”, she replied to her former high school classmate, whom she hadn't seen since they graduated.
Then the operation began.
He first searched the list of the Ministry of Defense among the ex-combatants who were alive.
She wanted to reassure her friend, because the fear was that, looking for the author of the letter, they would find out that he had not returned from the war.
He managed to locate a daughter in the Municipality of Ballesteros, and thus he reached the soldier, who was Rubén Mendoza.
Gladis now says
to Clarín
.
“The letter had remained at my mother's house among a lot of things that we wrote to each other at school.” Her mother's health deteriorated during her quarantine and one day her granddaughter, Gladis's daughter, put boxes in grandmother and found the letter among the memories of her mother. There were silences, a family meeting to see what they were doing and tears, because
the year 82 had been hard for the Tabordas: deaths in the family and a war that made the climate more somber.
Gladis Taborda, the woman who was reunited after 39 years with the soldier to whom she sent a letter through Malvinas.
The letter, now, took on an immense affective value.
Dated May 26, 1982, in the Malvinas Islands, Rubén Mendoza's text read like this.
“Dear friends, thank you very much for taking the trouble to write me and send the medal.
I tell you something about me. I am from Córdoba, I am from Villa María and I know Córdoba capital and its surroundings quite well (the letter has some spelling errors that are not included here).
When I was there I was a truck driver and I traveled the province and neighboring provinces quite a bit. I walked through Cerro de las Rosas for a short time before entering the colimba.
I came to the Battalion 5 which is located in Río Grande (Tierra del Fuego). For that reason, I don't feel the weather, I'm used to the south, the snow and the wind. The island's climate is better than in Rio Grande. It is not that cold and there are not so many winds.
Thank you guys again, although the distance at the moment is quite a lot, God willing I am going to return to Córdoba and I can get to know you and you me.
I am 19 years old, my birthday is on September 12. I am 1.75 tall. I'm skinny, a little crazy, as my friends from Rio Grande used to say. Well girls, I'm not writing anymore for today. Bye, good luck.
Ruben Mendoza. Cordovan and Argentine. And I'm not leaving here "
The soldier Rubén Mendoza today at his home in Córdoba.
It is dedicated to agricultural business.
Rubén is class 62. He was born and raised in the small town of
Ballesteros, where he returned after the war.
There he lived all his life and dedicated himself to agricultural activities.
In 1982 he was doing military service in Río Grande when the Argentine military decided to take the islands.
With their group in BIM 5 they had very little experience.
They'd done mock night combat and were used to the cold, but not much else.
He worked in the BIM 5 workshops, where they did transport and logistics.
“From the Battalion they sent the shooting companies.
And it was something of services for transportation in moving troops.
I asked the services officer in charge of me
to send me to the islands.
Well, he sent me.
We were a few from that section.
Of transports we went between 10 or 15 people nothing more.
Among them a few second corporals, some non-commissioned officers.
One died there.
-And why did you ask to go? Clarín asked him
Curiosity, provide services, serve the country.
At 18, 19 you like everything.
It is so.
There is no fear that scares you at that age.
Rubén said that the first days of the war he was "very" calm.
"It was like the campaigns we did on the continent," he said.
-When did you realize what war was?
When the fighting started.
Because it was no longer a campaign.
They were throwing us away.
And that was saving whoever can.
From the ground we had something to defend ourselves, but it was little.
-What was the worst moment that happened?
It may have been the day we retreated, when a noncommissioned officer died in the retreat.
He was wounded and died on the spot.
And well, we took him, between a partner we took him to the town.
We don't leave it there.
Meanwhile, Gladis remembers her father "very worried."
A father who did not believe in the version of the military leadership that claimed to be winning the war.
“We heard news from Uruguay and Colombia because he maintained that they were lying to us.
I did not understand much.
Of course we knew that we were in a dictatorship.
And all that.
And it was terrible. But when we watched TV he told us that they were lying to us.
That things were worse than what they showed ”.
Gladis apologizes today for being happy that one of her brothers was exempted from doing military service and therefore was not forced to serve in the war.
"It may sound selfish, sorry if I offend someone, but I'm glad I didn't go to war because we were very, very scared," he says.
A cousin of his had died when he was taken as a colimba to fight the guerrillas in Tucumán in the 1970s.
In the reunion zoom, which was set up in this way due to the impossibility of the protagonists to mobilize in these times of pandemic, Rubén launched: “I remember that we received letters.
Several letters were received.
From what Gladis says, I remember scarves and chocolates were received.
A small commission.
But today I don't even remember what his letter would say.
I don't know why I answered that one.
Because I will have answered three or four, not many more.
And well.
One was that ”.
In the end, Clarín asked Gladis and Rubén what they would say to each other now, 39 years after that letter.
“First of all
I want to thank you for taking the trouble
to have that and for having revived it because well that letter could have been thrown away and never heard from again.
Nothing but thank you ”, said Gladis excited and looking towards Rubén.
“I start to whine.
More being a crybaby.
I'm glad I met you, to know that you came back.
That is not a small thing because as Nany said (the war) was a tragedy.
And you look good because many did not return or did not return well.
And how capable you were able to capitalize on this that happened to you and you took it as one more experience and you kept moving forward and you were not badly anchored.
And that didn't happen to many of your classmates.
There are many people who came back and committed suicide.
Or it was very bad.
I'm glad you were able to continue.
I'm glad.
I am happy that you are here and you came back ”.
Then Gladis offered the original letter to Rubén.
He showed him that it was still folded as it had arrived, "like a little boat" and asked for a copy.
Rubén answered.
“So good… I'm going to pick her up at your house.
You are going to give me the address and the phone number by WhatsApp ”.