Sunday March 27, 2022 | 11:11 a.m.
“The most recurrent memory I have of the war is the fighting, the explosions, to this day when I will be 60 years old, it is the strongest memory I have,” said Juan Fagúndez, a former Malvinas combatant while drinking mate in his farm of El Soberbio, from where he spoke by telephone with El Territorio.
This missionary war hero fought on Mount Harriet and Mount Kent and was also a stretcher bearer and nurse. On June 12, two days before the Argentine capitulation that put an end to the conflict, he was hit by three enemy bullet splinters. These fragments seriously injured him when entering his neck and back, he was on the verge of death and with consequences for many years, which weakened his health.
“On June 12 at 01:30 in the morning I fell from the mountain when I was hit by the shrapnel, the shooting continued, it was a burst. I was taken as a prisoner of war by the British until June 23 and I was on the Uganda ship, a British hospital ship where I was treated by them, who performed my first surgery 200 miles from the Malvinas Islands”, he contributed precisely and maintained: “During the war and like my companions, I went hungry, cold, anguished and came back almost dead, I arrived at the Islands with a certain weight and when the war ended you might see my bones”.
Back on the continent, the soldier, son of a rural missionary family and who has been playing the accordion since he was 12 years old, was hospitalized in recovery at the Buenos Aires Military Hospital until October 1982.
“It was a long time before I was able to reunite with my family in Misiones, I was in very bad health for a long time, then I also lived for a time in Buenos Aires, I worked for everything in my youth, I was a bus driver, a truck driver and I was always a musician. Music saved me many times and was my refuge. I remember that my father wanted me to learn to carpen and plant tobacco and I would escape to the mountains to learn to play the accordion”, recalled the man who lost a leg a while ago due to diabetes and more recently also suffered from diabetes. finger amputation. To pay for medical expenses he had to sell his beloved accordion.
“The consequences of war are many for veterans. I did not have much access to health, today that we are reaching 60 years of age it is important that our social work responds and works well everywhere, not only in the capitals. I had to go to Posadas where the veterans gave me a place to stay and took me to the hospital. I still have to go to Posadas to get medical attention.”
The veteran was contained in Posadas by the civil association Center for ex-Combatants Veterans of the Malvinas War, who assisted him with shelter, transfers and medical procedures and also helped him get a prosthesis.
“Now that I’m in the wheelchair, I need my accordion more than ever. I play 80 bass piano accordion, that’s the one I had to sell regarding five years ago because of my treatment and I can’t buy it once more, but I would love to be able to play chamamé, cumbia, polkas, Brazilian music, from all over the region” .
