“I am an ex-combatant and a doctor graduated from the UNNE School of Medicine,” Juan Eduardo Cerezo introduces himself when the recorder is turned on for the interview that the National University of the Northeast conducted in homage to those who fought in the Malvinas war a few years ago. 40 years, and also passed through their classrooms.
With a calm voice he begins to tell his story. “I finished high school in Villa Ángela, and went (to Corrientes) to start my Medicine degree, but in the first year I was surprised by the lottery for my class to complete the Military Service, mandatory at that time,” he says and they begin. to sprout the memories of that young man who turned 25 in the Islands.
Like so many, at first Eduardo hoped to save himself “due to a low number.” The mechanism to enter the Compulsory Military Service at that time was by National Lottery draw, where according to the last three numbers of the Civic Booklet or the National Identity Document, a lottery number was applied to establish if the young person had to to do or not the conscription. The raffle was broadcast on Radio Nacional and generated a significant expectation in young people and their families. “I was very surprised when I got 917, which was Marina because of the high number,” he says.
He then decided to request an extension for studies and it was granted. But following the same and following some advice, he decided to suspend that extension and comply with the Military Service. “And precisely the conflict with the Malvinas touches me,” he says, and flashes of those experiences appear in his eyes.
From the white smock of a medical student, he went on to wear boots.
He had to integrate the battalion of Marine Infantry No. 2 and on March 28, 1892 he embarked along with so many others, towards the war.
But they didn’t know it. They were “going in an unknown direction because we didn’t know what our mission was,” she says. On April 1 they are informed what the mission was. “There we had breakfast, which was the recovery of the Malvinas Islands,” he recalls.
“Until that moment, although one knew of a conflict situation with Great Britain, one never imagined that our islands were under the total domination of the British crown,” he says.
On April 2 “the islands are taken. A jubilation, a joy at that moment,” he affirms and even almost smiles. But the story goes on.
The reality of a war came soon, when he learned that, due to his knowledge of medicine, he was going to collaborate in the health section. But he “was going to be just another combatant, until the first wounded fell,” his superiors told him beforehand.
So much so that he dyed the red cross on the case but erased it, “because it was a perfect target for the enemy.” “The first to fall was going to be me, if he had that red cross painted on his helmet. It gave me away,” he explains today, 40 years later.
With the passing of days, he had to begin to apply the knowledge he had acquired in college. Which was almost everything you learn in medicine, because when it was his turn to go defend the country, “I just needed the rotating internship,” he recalls.
In the archipelago, where the section of the battalion he was in had stayed, he worked as a nurse. “Not a doctor, because there were career doctors there from the Marine Corps, who were in charge of the health section,” he clarifies.
In this context, “what the faculty gave me was fundamental,” he says, and he doesn’t just talk regarding knowledge. Also of the links that are established, “relationships that last over time and accompany us throughout life.”
“To this day the friendships that were born in a boarding house at that time, perhaps,” he says with some nostalgia.
A birthday in the war
Eduardo was perhaps one of the greatest soldiers. Most of him was between 17 and 19 years old, he embarked with 24 and in Malvinas he received his 25th birthday.
He never imagined that he would ever spend a birthday in a war. And in fact he did not celebrate. “The context was not the right one and the spirits were not for celebration,” she says.
In addition, they were just beginning to get to know the other 32 comrades who remained in that section of the battalion, with whom he would later forge a friendship. “So I practically spent that day knowing only me, that it was my birthday,” he adds regarding that April 6, 1982.
The return and the title
After the conflict, Eduardo returns to his native Villa Ángela. But things were not the same. Neither the economic reality of the country, and in particular of his family “perhaps because of the conflict, or for other reasons, the situation became difficult to continue my studies and I had to start working there in Corrientes,” he says. .
Taking care not to hurt the feelings of his mother and father who had made so much effort to pay for his university studies, this young man began working in the health department of a company from Corrientes that built oil platforms for foreign countries.
At the same time he resumed his studies. That was when he was surprised by a letter from the Argentine Embassy “for which they offered me, through the Unican company, a scholarship,” he says.
The company, located at that time in the Chaco town of Puerto Tirol, was a tannin factory. And the scholarship they offered him was barely less than what he earned at his job. Ensuring a similar economic income, with the “condition that I had to give up that job to dedicate myself fully to my studies”, was convenient.
And “that was the kick that, from the government, I received to complete my studies”, he recalls the benefit that, perhaps by way of gratitude, the National Government gave him for having fought in the Falklands War.
But the road was not going to be the same as his days of study before the war. After Malvinas, “it was a total change,” he says. He says that “there is a period of readaptation”, in which “the noises, the buzzes, mobilize you”.
“One is more sensitive, and that was what cost me the most,” he recalls with some regret, although he emphasizes that he had “the necessary containment, which one seeks.”
“You need to be heard sometimes, and I found that. And I was able to overcome that transition stage, as I call it, to resume my life once more, ”she says.
Thus, with the economic boost from the government, the support of family, friends and the environment in the Faculty, “I was able to finish my studies well and immediately began to work”, he adds with pride of having been able to finish his university career and receive the degree of doctor of the National University of the Northeast.
After several years of having worked in Public Health, “I have contact with the UNNE once more, through a postgraduate course in forensic medicine,” he says with a smile.
“And it is what I am working on today,” adds Eduardo, who is already retired from Public Health (by provincial law, which enabled ex-combatants with 25 years of service to join the benefit), today serving as a Doctor Forensic, in the Penitentiary Service of Chaco.
The war and the goal of coming back alive
“A traumatic situation like a war, like it or not, changes you,” says this doctor and former combatant.
“Although maybe being 4 or 5 years older than the rest of the comrades who participated in the conflict gives you advantages, sometimes it works once morest you. Because the human being has a great capacity to adapt to extreme situations, and sometimes with a certain age it can be achieved with greater success”, adds who in 1982 was “great” in view of so many young people who sought and found support in him, “because of the function and also perhaps because of the age”.
“The training and knowledge that I acquired -in college- were extremely valuable,” he remarks. But he clarifies that “the other way around too.”
“The situation, the experience, also strengthens you internally. It helps you face critical or difficult situations that life throws at you, be it in studies, work, sentimental, family, losses. You see yourself emotionally and spiritually strengthened, despite the badness of the experience that the conflict represented”, explains this forensic doctor whose profession perhaps also later confronted him with difficult situations.
But there is something that Eduardo wants to make clear. And also as a message; and even advice, for those who want to take it. That “the main thing is to set goals. Set a goal and put effort and dedication -to achieve it- ”, he says.
“That is what helped me in these two situations, one desired, sought following or chosen, as was the Medicine degree, and the other, the Malvinas conflict,” he says. Saving the great distances, in both experiences she appealed to the same strategy: set a goal. One “was to come back alive”, and so it was. “The other might not be given, to succeed, but to come back was one of the goals,” she adds.
The other was to finish my Medicine degree “and both of them gave me the result of fighting for those goals”, he concludes excitedly.
