ANGOLA, THE UNNECESSARY WAR

The book that follows takes us into the human drama of a family man turned overnight into a soldier. The protagonist pulled into the Angolan War, an unnecessary alien strife answering to the same dictatorial circumstances that dragged thousands of other Cubans into a conflagration leading to the economic, political, and social impoverishment of the Cuban society.The reader will find here the intimate account of a man in full campaign, where the human perspective prevails over the typical approach to wars and their sequences of strategic displacements and tactical combat. It is an immersion in the psychology and performance of the typical cannon fodder, behind which there is always a family, wife, small children, and a myriad of postponed dreams. From the pages of this book protrudes the trauma of the horrors of an alien war, imposed on Cubans by a fraudulent leader, whose end was, always, to satisfy his vanity, unbridled ego, and hunger for command. The events take place in the 1970s, at a time when the great powers fought to impose their mark in the countries freed from the colonial yoke in Africa. In this case, Angola gaining its independence from Portugal and facing an internal power struggle between three rival factions, and by South Africa, seeking to wedge its political influence based on the proximity to their borders. The internal fronts had several supporters, but the weight of the Cold War heavily marked at the time, influenced that dispute decisively. Fidel Castro resolves then to send men to combat, while the former Soviet Union guarantees the weapons and material resources. The circumstances singled out the author of this book as one of those men. Now, distanced by forty years from the events, cured of its traumatic sequels, Carlos Pedre Pentón decides to peek back into his past.