The Cuban combatant number 25 thousand

Photo: Pastor Batista

He was assigned, with the Mixed Artillery Battery, to the southern part of the Cuito River, where he participated in various combats, one of the strongest on February 14 and the final battle on March 23. There they regrouped and moved away to fire heavily on the South African forces.

He arrived in full harass from the enemy, who had long-range artillery pieces and powerful mortars, in addition to the air force, unstoppably unloading on our ranks. He had to control, organize and plan with precision the ammunition, the food, the means and to be aware of everything so that the troops did not go through needs.

Since he was the boss, he feared more for the lives of his soldiers than for his own, since they depended on his decisions and most of them were young people from the Military Service. At present he feels the satisfaction of not having lost any man in combat.

He led a group of BM-21, of reactive artillery, of those that fire 40 rockets in 29 seconds and although he was already a First Lieutenant, the real combats do not leave anyone indifferent. From the general command post they gave the orders and quickly started to serve those missions, because in a war the minutes count and any man or woman tilts the balance between victory and defeat.

They cooked underground; they did everything in the shelters and in the trenches. The big pellets knocked down the trees, they devastated and the fundamental thing was to have the courage to endure the shock, the fear and overcome in battle. The enemy artillery bombs began at 6 in the morning and did not stop until the sun went down in the mountain of Cuito Cuanavale.

For him, who was always in the middle of the jungle, the saddest thing about Angola was the poverty, the hunger, the quimbos, the bad conditions, the exploited women, with their children on their backs and the stove above their heads.

There, perhaps a slippery tear escaped from his eyes in the expectation of no return, of not knowing if the fruit of the six-month-old womb that he left behind would be a daughter or a son, or of knowing that, in life and in war, no it is the same "to call the devil than to see it arrive".

He pressed his backpack tightly against his body, the first time he got on a plane, just to leave for the black continent on December 5, 1987, when Raúl Castro said goodbye to them at the Holguín Military Airport and conveyed the Fidel's confidence and the importance of the mission to be fulfilled to strengthen the defense of southern Angola.

But like all the internationalist combatants that I know, and have had the pleasure of interviewing, he spoke of the infinite pride of having helped a people and the honor of being part of Cuba that only brought, from that rich land so plundered by other nations, the remains of children killed in combat.

Precisely because he explained in detail that ennobling feeling of solidarity, the fulfillment of duty and the deep joy of having cooperated with the liberation of Namibia and the end of Apartheid, today, Internationalist Combatant's Day, I relive the story of Superancio Revé Dubois, who has the honor of having been the 25,000th Cuban combatant to return from the combat mission in Angola.