The Royal Guard distributes products from the food
bank in the Community of Madrid.
people”, explains corporal Jesús Miguel
Otoré, one of the ten cooks and food
handlers from AALOG 41 who look after
the field kitchen at Barcelona’s Trade Fair.
The Armed Forces also distribute
food from various food banks to the
most vulnerable. In Madrid, the Royal
Guard collects it from the Alcalá de
Henares Food Bank and distributes it
throughout the Community. Units of the
Canary Islands Command do the same in
Tenerife; and in Zaragoza, the AALOG 41
soldiers take food to nine nursing homes.
The Navy is also collaborating with soup
kitchens in Cartagena, Cádiz and San
Fernando.
QUARTERMASTER CORPS
Since the beginning of Operation Balmis,
the Quartermaster Corps Materiel Supply
Centre and Depot Park (PCAMI) has
been the organization in which all the
resources acquired by the Armed Forces
or donated by private entities to combat
SARS-Cov-2 are concentrated. During
the first seven days of operation alone,
the PCAMI received over three and a
half million masks, 200,000 disposable
protective gowns and overalls and 20,000
litres of bleach and other disinfectants.
Most of these were purchased by
the Procurement Division of the Army
Logistics Support Command (MALE).
Disposable suits, masks and other
products donated by defence companies
The Armed Forces with the people
Fernando Martínez Laínez
Journalist and writer
THE Armed Forces as well as the people protect the population. As it should
be. Helping to overcome the biblical plague in a battle against an invisible
enemy. Soldiers, mostly anonymous, in a war without front lines or borders.
Heroes who, of course, are not only warriors, but also men and women
acting as an underpinning and collective integrating element. With exemplary
qualities to help the public, qualities that stem from inner and ethical values
rather than from bravery with weapons.
Once again, the Armed Forces took to the deserted and besieged streets,
in search of the murderous ghost of the coronavirus, the new beast of the
Apocalypse.
An essential bulwark, the infallible support in times of social calamity.
Knowing they are there helps us to endure. A guarantee of joint victory at
critical times.
“No army is better than its soldiers”, declared American General Patton. The
soldier is also a citizen, and the greatest privilege of citizenship is to serve one’s
country with (or without) weapons.
The Republican Emilio Castelar used to say that bayonets are good for
everything except for sitting on them. And the tragedy of the plague that cuts
us to the quick proves him right. Because our Armed Forces do not sit back,
they stay on the warpath against the enemy, who or whatever it may be. Today
the virus, tomorrow who knows?
“The most beautiful thing there is, after inspiration, is sacrifice”, wrote the
French romantic Alfred de Vigny in his book Servitude and Military Greatness,
“nothing is so worthy of the interest and love of the nation as this self-sacrificing
family, which sometimes brings it so much glory”.
Calderón de la Barca, soldier of the Army of Flanders, also wrote in verse:
“That in good and bad fortune / the militia is nothing but / a religion of honest men”.
The military is part of the people in one of its indispensable functions, and
should there be any doubt that it serves the people, the recent plague has
come to confirm this. “What is the military if not the nerve that sends breath and
vital energy to the entire body of the nation?”, asked Antonio Maura in 1908.
Although more open and professional than ever before, the Armed Forces
continue to call for deep empathy with their homeland and national identity. This
is the atmosphere that helps them accomplish their often-uncertain mission
with dignity, because heroism does not always come in a blaze of glory.
Sometimes you have to go down into the sewers of the plague to beat the
beast. Because fighting spirit cannot be bought and it needs the will to win.
Tolkien put it simply: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow
for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend”.
“If you’re going through hell, keep walking”, said Churchill, another tough
old guy. Walk until the tide turns.
And in the end, as the historian-philosopher Spengler put it, and many have
repeated, it has always been a platoon of soldiers that has saved civilization.
Keep your spirits up. The Armed Forces are with the people.
And the only easy day was yesterday.
and banks also arrive at the Depot. The
PCAMI Supply Unit organizes all these
resources and distributes them in less
than 24 hours following receipt through
the MALE Logistics Support Management
Centre, an organization that has activated
its own resources to reinforce the Army
Transport Group that has supplied the
Armed Forces with these products since
the beginning of the operation.
AIRBORNE SUPPORT
The Army also uses FAMET (Army
Airmobile Forces) helicopters to trans-
port personnel and material, while
aircraft from the Air Force’s Search and
Rescue (SAR) units make these types of
flights between the Canary and Balearic
Islands, Ceuta and Melilla.
Air Force transport aircraft are playing
a major role in managing the health
MoD
April 2020 Revista Española de Defensa 23