Argentine war veteran Horacio Benitez and his wife Maria were welcomed to the Falklands War Memorial Chapel at Pangbourne College in Berkshire on 14 March 2011. They were warmly received by the Chaplain, Rev Brian Cunningham, and the headmaster, Thomas Garnier, whose father had been in charge of organising the fleet of 105 British ships that sailed to the South Atlantic in order to ‘liberate’ the Falkland Islands from Argentine occupation.
Benitez had been a 19-year-old conscripted army sergeant during the 1982 war, and had been left for dead on the battlefield at Wireless Ridge, near the capital Port Stanley, after taking a bullet to his head. A British army doctor, realising he had a pulse, saved his life.
Following his visit to the IofC centre in Caux, Switzerland, after the war, Benitez sought reconciliation with the British army. The UK’s Ministry of Defence declined to help, but Lt Col Chris Keeble, who had taken command of the Second Paratroop Battalion at the battle of Goose Green after the death of Col ‘H’ Jones, agreed to meet him. Their profound reconciliation and subsequent friendship was reported in the British press. Read report in For A Change magazine>>
Keeble and Benitez had spoken to the students at Canford College in Dorset, at the invitation of the chaplain there, on 11 March, before Benitez and his wife went on to Pangbourne College in Berkshire. They were accompanied there by Jim and Jo Purvis, former members of the Fleet Air Arm, who had first met Benitez in Buenos Aires and had arranged the original rapprochement between Benitez and Keeble.
The visit to Pangbourne College was arranged by Michael Smith, head of communications for Initiatives of Change UK, who had been a Royal Naval Reserve Cadet there in the 1960s. In those days it was the Nautical College, Pangbourne, and several of Smith’s contemporaries fought in the Falklands War. It is now a coeducational boarding school and retains its naval links.
The memorial chapel there was built to commemorate the lives and sacrifice of the 252 servicemen and three Falkland Islanders who died during the war. It was opened by the Queen in March 2000. Benitez is believed to be only the second Argentine war veteran to be welcomed to the memorial chapel.
The Falklands War was a turning point in the political fortunes of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who was subsequently re-elected for a second term. It also led to the downfall of Argentina’s military dictator, General Galtieri, who had ordered the invasion of the British colony. Argentina has long held an historic claim to the sovereignty of the islands.
Next year, 2012, marks the 30th anniversary of the war. Keeble hopes that one day he and Benitez will be able to visit the islands together.
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