In Colombia, April 9th is the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with the Victims of the Armed Conflict.
"If they gave me the opportunity to choose to be a soldier, I would be one again in this life and the next, because I love what I do and I like the camouflage uniform of my National Army," said Soldier Alexander Hernández Ariza, of the Seventh Brigade in Villavicencio, Meta.
He was born in the municipality of La Paz, Santander, on August 28, 2013. On a road leading from La Macarena, Meta, to San Vicente del Caguán, Caquetá, he was the victim of a minefield made of 8 cylinder-type explosive devices; at that time he belonged to the Counterguerillas Battalion No. 51 Cacique Turmequé, of the Mobile Brigade No. 3.
As a result of this criminal action perpetrated by members of the Luis Pardo Leal Mobile Column, of the former FARC, whose main ringleader was alias Barba, four soldiers were killed and two more soldiers were injured, Soldier Hernández and a non-commissioned officer. This man from Santander, entered the Pedro Pascasio Martínez School of Soldiers in 2008, has the traces caused by the activation of the minefield marked on his body, traces that have had three surgical interventions by the National Army medical Health staff to date.
"The explosive wave disturbed my ears, testicles, septum, spine and stomach," Hernández Ariza pointed out. Soldier Alexander Hernández Ariza, who is married, and a father of two children, and has 10 siblings, says that the best recovery therapy and the engine of overcoming is his Family, the same one that since the first moment he had knowledge because it been by his side accompanying him.
Having as a premise the military vocation, the sense of commitment to the homeland and his love for the institution, Hernández Ariza currently works as a carpenter of the Airborne Infantry Battalion N° 20 General Manuel Roergas Serviez, a job that he has been conducting since 2019 at the Apiay Military base, Meta.
Every victim of the armed conflict hurts us; that is why one way to exalt the glory of the military and police officers is not to forget them, in our memory live the 433,213 members of the Military Forces victims of the armed conflict and their families.
Source: Press - Fourth Division of the National Army
