'Pelotudos de M...da'

One day during the war, my friends and I were playing football a few blocks from the house. We noticed this young guy dressed in civilian clothing running along the road. It's like he was in state of panic. He also had a woolly hat on, the type one of my friends used. We didn't think much of it at first. Then, a few minutes later some Argentine soldiers came running past, one of them stopping to ask if we'd seen anyone. He had a helmet on, with the letters PM large and white at the front. We said yeah, guy went running that way, pointing. They left, going in the same direction.

 

Later that evening, just after the curfew began at 4pm, the Monsignor was by the fence between his house and ours. He beckoned me over. He then went on to describe how he'd been outside the front of the church - which was next to the police station, and how there'd been a soldier who had tried running away - deserting, I guess, the Monsignor said. He was tied up, and on the ground crying. 

The Monsignor had stepped in, trying to stop the other soldiers from manhandling the boy - who was just that. They uniformed soldiers told the Monsignor to go away.

I didn't like to say my friends and I had seen the young soldier running past earlier. And my friends and I hadn't known any better, or interpreted correctly what we'd seen. 

I asked Carlos some days later, my mother's boyfriend who worked at the YPF gas station - What did the PM on the soldiers helmets stand for?

Carlos answered 'Pelotudos de Mierda.'

I never forgot that.

It's still my favourite insult, in Spanish.

Of course it really stood for 'Policia Militar.' 

I get to use it a lot these last months, when people insult me and talk shit about the islands, and that the war will happen again like they have all the answers. 

If only they knew how lucky they were.