Corrientes Mobilises at the Call of the Bugle
Remarkable account from the newspaper “LA ÉPOCA”
At that time, since our country is not a homogeneous whole, Corrientes was different when it came to military service as well. Personally, I have seen conscripts who had been exempted on health grounds asking the doctors to take them in anyway, even if only as cleaning staff, because they did not want to return to their towns bearing what they felt to be a shameful rejection, a stigma.
After years of working on the history of Corrientes, I have no doubt that such attitudes, and the pride those former Corrientes conscripts took in wearing their uniform, were the product of the province’s past. It was a past shaped by wars, celebrated as Corrientes’ fundamental contribution throughout the nineteenth century, and reinforced by the essentially livestock-based character of a “horse-riding” province isolated by rivers and poor roads. Horsemen, “men of silence”.
In this regard, how did the men of that reinforced Corrientes regiment, the 5th Infantry Regiment of Paso de los Libres, conduct themselves when they fought at Puerto Yapeyú? Does their conduct justify continuing to speak of an epic tradition, regardless of the final outcome? In any event, although those events are now indelibly inscribed in the military history of Corrientes, it is worth remembering that the Corrientes epic was forged through notable victories such as Caá Guazú and Caseros, but also in the mud of harsh defeats at Pago Largo, Arroyo Grande and Vences Rincón. For when the reckoning is done, there are defeats which, deservedly, also grant the vanquished their share of glory and their place in history.
The regiment and the Engineer, Communications and Medical units that reinforced it all belonged to a Corrientes brigade, but the conscripts were not only from Corrientes: there were also men from Chaco, Formosa and the forested wedge of Santa Fe. Many of them were those we affectionately know as menchos: illiterate rural labourers from our countryside who would leave knowing how to read, write and count thanks to the regiment’s primary school, which later disappeared along with conscription.
On 2 April, the response of those who had served there lived up to the great history of Corrientes. One witness recounts:
“Later in the day, dozens of former soldiers began to gather spontaneously... Without knowing exactly what was happening... they crowded around the entrance gate to the barracks at Paso de los Libres. These citizens, who had already fulfilled their obligations under the Compulsory Military Service Law, wanted to enter the barracks and put on the uniform again... Dozens of young men from the 1962 and 1961 classes, and even some from 1960, crowded around the entrance. There were even older volunteers and men who had never received military training. Everyone wanted to take part...”
Many of those who were elsewhere did not wait to be summoned.
A former conscript from Las Breñas who was studying engineering heard the news, travelled home to say goodbye, and his parents took him to Libres:
“...where we cried and said farewell in the face of an uncertain fate. My mother, who was a teacher, said to me: ‘You have to do your duty to the Motherland, son.’ In those days, you did not need a piece of paper to know what was right.”
Another former conscript, from Villa Ángela, who was living in Derqui, in Buenos Aires Province, was attending a computing course in the capital when he heard the news. He informed his parents and took a coach to Paso de los Libres.
A First Corporal from Formosa was married and had a one-year-old baby daughter. Mabragaña gave him the option of staying behind to look after the barracks, but he went home and told his wife:
“Pack your suitcase, because you’re going to Formosa... I’m going south...”
A conscript from the rural area around Goya, who served with the 3rd Engineer Company of Monte Caseros, did not wait either and went to volunteer:
“...I have nothing to lose except my life. My teachers taught me well that the Malvinas were ours. So I’m going to defend what is mine.”
The spirit of those who had to remain behind does not appear to have been any different. A soldier who had been enlisted for only a month recalls that when the regiment departed:
“The whole town was there at the station... two of my friends... were leaving. I felt like joining them and climbing aboard the carriage... I had to make do with watching them leave and then returning to the barracks.
It was very emotional.”
At two o’clock in the morning on 11 April, the first 157 men of the 5th Regiment departed by train, together with all their vehicles, supplies and ammunition. The rest would follow over the next few days.
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