Goldstein
Banned
“Whatever the circumstances that may arise, wherever I am, there will be no Communism”
-Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Caudillo of Spain by the grace of God.
October the 6th, 1967.
Conscript Miguel Angel Ramirez was feeling alien to himself, totally focused in his own qualia, trying to isolate his fear as some deaf and distant noise. The sweat falling in drops from his forehead, the scorching wind moving his plates and the cross of Caravaca in his chest, the hardened and tanned faces around him, holding to their CETMEs, as sweated and nervous as him; the deafening flapping of the Bell UH-1 blades, the stench of the jungle and the black cigarettes in his nose and his throat. That was all that he could feel, like one could have said he was meditating, emptying his mind of every judgement beyond his inmediate reality, but he was simply scared and aswering to primal defense mechanisms. But that couldn't last, not in such a decisive moment. And so, suddenly, the reality of the situation, and that bit of reality that was himself, came back to him like a punch to his stomach and his face. The lush landscape in sunset around him and under him, Yolanda and his little boy, thousands of kilometers away, almost in the other edge of the world, a different world with an important spiritual role in the West, or so they said. The time when he took amphetamines to simulate a coronary disorder, and how he did not fool them. The foolish and maybe suicide plan he was a part of. Fear got closer and louder, and then he asked it, the emerging question, even though he knew there was no turning back, maybe to break that heavy illusion of silence in the smoke-filled cabin, that oppressed him more than his superiors' anger.
-My sergeant, you know they're gonna be very pissed off... do you?
-Ramirez, the Chinese can go fuck themselves.
-You know I'm not talking about the Chinese.
-Well, they can go fuck themselves too. We'll teach them how things get done. I'm sick of losing men playing hide and seek, while those Commie barbarians in the north laugh at us! Besides, we are taking orders from above, and we're gonna comply or die trying, am I talking clearly?
-Very clearly, my sergeant!
-I see... you look nervous. Well, let's put them nervous too. Let's anounce our arrival with some psychological warfare, right? Santos, play the record!
Conscript Fernando Santos grinned, threw his cigarette from the open side of the helicopter and obeyed cavalry sergeant Serna. From the speakers sounded something that would definitely inspire fear and confusion in their enemies. Soon followed the first desperate stings, the first points of incandescent light passing near the helicoper, the one tasked with giving support to the whole FAMET division that flew with them, the famed Aeromobile Army Ground Forces of Spain. Ramirez entered inside his automatic state again, just this time the fear was still there almost like a buzz near his ears and inside his chest, while taking his possition in the mounted machine gun and firing back with a rattle that deafened everything else.
-Showtime, men. Ramirez, do your prayers if you haven't done them yet!
-I can't! I'm shooting, my sergeant! -said Ramirez as loud as he could.
-Then pray and shoot! Pray and shoot!
From A brief history of Spain, Alejandro Salmerón, Alianza Editorial, 2007
“The position that Francoist Spain took regarding World War II can be divided in three clear stages. The first one, that can be traced until september 1942 (with the fall from grace of the minister of outer affairs Serrano Súñer) and the turning point of the Spanish outer policy in april 1943, is one of non-beligerance disguising a clear support of the Axis with its highest peak being the Hendaya interview of 1940, to which we will refer later. This support included, strikingly, pro-Japanese propaganda. The Japanese during the Spanish Civil War had been regarded due to their actions in China as a force against the spread of Communism. This support manifested from joining the anti-Comintern pact in 1939, to acts of espionage towards the Allies led by Serrano Súñer himself, and mainly by the actions of the first Blue Division in the Eastern Theatre(...)
...but in spite of this growing skepticism outside the Falange sector, this pro-Axis attitude manifested even in the most futile aspeccts of life. The names of the London and Paris hotels were changed to Rome and Berlin; the Russian Salad was renamed “National Salad”(...)
...it's in this second stage, and especially after the Japanese massacres in the Philippines, when within the Spanish outer policy started to appear the notion of the theory of the three wars. According to it, there was a war of the Western Powers against Germany in which Spain was neutral, a war of the Axis against Communism in which Spain was pro-Axis, and a war of the Western powers against the Japanese barbarism in which Spain was pro allies. In spite of this, the height of tensions between Spain and the United States would mark the third stage after the Laurel incident. When The pro-Japanese governor of the Philippines declared the independence of the isles and Spain sent a congratulation telegram, a heavy campaign of ridiculization towards Spain started, and there were filtrations that made Spain think that an American attack on them was inminent. Wether this threat was real of just a maneuvre to make Spain officialize its hostility towards Japan and cut the Spanish supplies of tungsten to the Axis, is beyond the scope of this work, but had Spain called the bet(...)[1]
...The Council of ministers that followed lasted three days and was one of those crucial moments in the History of Spain. After three more days in which Spain recovered the contact with the American diplomats, and an extraordinary reunion in Madrid between the Count of Jordana and the American ambassator in Spain, the third stage had begun. In the first of november of 1943, Spain unilaterally declared war to Japan. The fourth of november of that year, Spain would retire the remnants of the first Blue Division from the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, against all odds, the Spain of Francisco Franco had joined the Allied nations."
[1]Up to this, it's all OTL.
-Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Caudillo of Spain by the grace of God.
October the 6th, 1967.
Conscript Miguel Angel Ramirez was feeling alien to himself, totally focused in his own qualia, trying to isolate his fear as some deaf and distant noise. The sweat falling in drops from his forehead, the scorching wind moving his plates and the cross of Caravaca in his chest, the hardened and tanned faces around him, holding to their CETMEs, as sweated and nervous as him; the deafening flapping of the Bell UH-1 blades, the stench of the jungle and the black cigarettes in his nose and his throat. That was all that he could feel, like one could have said he was meditating, emptying his mind of every judgement beyond his inmediate reality, but he was simply scared and aswering to primal defense mechanisms. But that couldn't last, not in such a decisive moment. And so, suddenly, the reality of the situation, and that bit of reality that was himself, came back to him like a punch to his stomach and his face. The lush landscape in sunset around him and under him, Yolanda and his little boy, thousands of kilometers away, almost in the other edge of the world, a different world with an important spiritual role in the West, or so they said. The time when he took amphetamines to simulate a coronary disorder, and how he did not fool them. The foolish and maybe suicide plan he was a part of. Fear got closer and louder, and then he asked it, the emerging question, even though he knew there was no turning back, maybe to break that heavy illusion of silence in the smoke-filled cabin, that oppressed him more than his superiors' anger.
-My sergeant, you know they're gonna be very pissed off... do you?
-Ramirez, the Chinese can go fuck themselves.
-You know I'm not talking about the Chinese.
-Well, they can go fuck themselves too. We'll teach them how things get done. I'm sick of losing men playing hide and seek, while those Commie barbarians in the north laugh at us! Besides, we are taking orders from above, and we're gonna comply or die trying, am I talking clearly?
-Very clearly, my sergeant!
-I see... you look nervous. Well, let's put them nervous too. Let's anounce our arrival with some psychological warfare, right? Santos, play the record!
Conscript Fernando Santos grinned, threw his cigarette from the open side of the helicopter and obeyed cavalry sergeant Serna. From the speakers sounded something that would definitely inspire fear and confusion in their enemies. Soon followed the first desperate stings, the first points of incandescent light passing near the helicoper, the one tasked with giving support to the whole FAMET division that flew with them, the famed Aeromobile Army Ground Forces of Spain. Ramirez entered inside his automatic state again, just this time the fear was still there almost like a buzz near his ears and inside his chest, while taking his possition in the mounted machine gun and firing back with a rattle that deafened everything else.
-Showtime, men. Ramirez, do your prayers if you haven't done them yet!
-I can't! I'm shooting, my sergeant! -said Ramirez as loud as he could.
-Then pray and shoot! Pray and shoot!
From A brief history of Spain, Alejandro Salmerón, Alianza Editorial, 2007
“The position that Francoist Spain took regarding World War II can be divided in three clear stages. The first one, that can be traced until september 1942 (with the fall from grace of the minister of outer affairs Serrano Súñer) and the turning point of the Spanish outer policy in april 1943, is one of non-beligerance disguising a clear support of the Axis with its highest peak being the Hendaya interview of 1940, to which we will refer later. This support included, strikingly, pro-Japanese propaganda. The Japanese during the Spanish Civil War had been regarded due to their actions in China as a force against the spread of Communism. This support manifested from joining the anti-Comintern pact in 1939, to acts of espionage towards the Allies led by Serrano Súñer himself, and mainly by the actions of the first Blue Division in the Eastern Theatre(...)
...but in spite of this growing skepticism outside the Falange sector, this pro-Axis attitude manifested even in the most futile aspeccts of life. The names of the London and Paris hotels were changed to Rome and Berlin; the Russian Salad was renamed “National Salad”(...)
...it's in this second stage, and especially after the Japanese massacres in the Philippines, when within the Spanish outer policy started to appear the notion of the theory of the three wars. According to it, there was a war of the Western Powers against Germany in which Spain was neutral, a war of the Axis against Communism in which Spain was pro-Axis, and a war of the Western powers against the Japanese barbarism in which Spain was pro allies. In spite of this, the height of tensions between Spain and the United States would mark the third stage after the Laurel incident. When The pro-Japanese governor of the Philippines declared the independence of the isles and Spain sent a congratulation telegram, a heavy campaign of ridiculization towards Spain started, and there were filtrations that made Spain think that an American attack on them was inminent. Wether this threat was real of just a maneuvre to make Spain officialize its hostility towards Japan and cut the Spanish supplies of tungsten to the Axis, is beyond the scope of this work, but had Spain called the bet(...)[1]
...The Council of ministers that followed lasted three days and was one of those crucial moments in the History of Spain. After three more days in which Spain recovered the contact with the American diplomats, and an extraordinary reunion in Madrid between the Count of Jordana and the American ambassator in Spain, the third stage had begun. In the first of november of 1943, Spain unilaterally declared war to Japan. The fourth of november of that year, Spain would retire the remnants of the first Blue Division from the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, against all odds, the Spain of Francisco Franco had joined the Allied nations."
[1]Up to this, it's all OTL.
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