La Palabra Del Gringo!

Leadership of the Nicaraguan National Guard

An officer who had served two years with the Guardia Nacional of t Nicaragua once related to me a little incident that happened in one of the towns in his district. He used the expression, quoting a Nicaraguan, “La palabra del gringo!” “By the word of the gringo!” My interest was instantly housed. When had the word of the gringo taken on the solemnity of an oath? My subsequent inquiry developed the answer, and from other officers who had served in the guardia much light was thrown upon the character of the Nicaraguan, his soldierly qualities, and the daily problems that confronted his American leader. They are generally modest men, and much of their story in the field with their alien charges is locked behind their reticence, the seeker for the human side of this remarkable story must weave his fabric from the gleanings of the casual talk of these leaders of the Guardia Nacional to form an estimate of their dangerous and interesting service.

The year 1927, when the Marine Corps Under the unratified Stimson Treaty, undertook to organize, equip, and train the National Guard of Nicaragua, marked the first close contact of the gringo with the native of this little Republic. For many years, at intervals, marines and naval personnel had been upon the soil of Nicaragua, but the true nature of the native and the real character and purpose of the "invader" were hidden one from the other by a screen of distrust bred of ignorance and misunderstanding. With the organization of the guardia the door of understanding was thrown open and the Nicaraguan and the American clasped hands in a mutual undertaking, the restoration and preservation of peace in their land. An enemy stalked through the land, gilded with the shibboleth of “Liberty,” menacing the life and property of the paisano and the haciendero alike. The aid of the United States led the way to peace and political stability; the Nicaraguan followed uncertainly in the beginning, to gradually gain strength and independence, and to replace distrust with understand­ing, faith, and esteem.

The impartial justice and honesty of those that composed the electoral com­missions fed this tree of understanding but its roots lay deepest in the hearts of those Nicaraguans who marched and fought in the mountainous trails under their marine leaders and found them not wanting in bravery, fairness, good humor, and sympathy.

Political affiliation in Nicaragua is hereditary and geographic. In the past such affiliation carried with it the burden of bearing arms and correcting political mistakes with the business end of a rifle. In the beginning the guardia was in­doctrinated with the national concept; it was to be a non-political body, and it so became. Its members became so imbued with this national conception of their duty as to regard themselves as set apart from the rank and file of their fellow-country­men.

The Nicaraguan is a fighting man. While the men of the country are, gener­ally speaking, a warm-hearted and affec­tionate lot, they are also fearless, pre­ferring death to loss of “face.” They were, however, untrained and unaccustomed to discipline. The American marines who were detailed to organize the guardia were quick to perceive that these same un­disciplined fighters, once dressed in ma­rine khaki uniform, shod and equipped, proudly bearing their national insignia, the five volcanos and liberty cap, on their sombreros, were excellent military ma­terial.

Brave they proved to be, capable of enduring pain and hardship, but of the leader they required inspiration. Of the many stories that are told of heroic deeds of the guardia when marines recall their service with these Central Americans, is that of the trooper who, under marine tutelage, had become quite a boxer. Be­fore the marine became leader of the guardia, fistic encounters were dreaded. Their fear of this form of combat departed when they took up athletic training under their Northern comrades in arms. In a smoker at Managua this guardia in the fifth round of a 6-round fight dislocated his shoulder. He made no complaint of this injury, continuing to press his op­ponent. The peculiar position of his arm and his inability to use it indicated to a naval medical officer present the fact of dislocation. The fight was immediately stopped and an examination made, result­ing in the guardia being ordered to the hospital. He protested and insisted he was quite able to go on and finish the fight with one arm. Not he to fail before that gathering of gringos, men of proved courage.

The Nicaraguan soldier of the past had been used to receiving orders from nothing less than a colonel. Majors, captains, and lieutenants were as scarce as hen’s teeth in the old Nicaraguan armies, and sergeants and corporals were simply words under the old system. The Guardia Nacional was something new; capitans and tenientes were real, sympathetic per­sons who directed and supervised the em­bryo guardia; imposing their will with a smile. And the mozos took to it like ducks to water. They liked the guardia not only for the pay and three meals a day but because of their close contact with the American marine, whose qualities they admired. Their response to their gringo officers was impulsive and whole-hearted; the routine of training and drills was nothing, inured as they were to hardship. The marine became guide, philosopher, and friend, and, in most instances, the idol of his command.

This habit of giving their all to their officers, when confidence was once estab­lished, was one of the first serious ob­stacles to be overcome in the organization of the guardia. A detachment with a good leader became obsessed with the idea that their particular “Jefe” was the best and only one of any consequence in their limited world. When detachments came together this subject often resulted in lengthy and sometimes serious arguments over the qualities of their respective leaders. It soon became necessary to es­tablish a systematic transfer of men from one detachment to another in order that they might become acquainted with and accustomed to different officers and their methods.

The marines who undertook this difficult duty were quick to perceive that the average guardia was plastic material, easily molded by adept fingers of leadership. The mold when perfected could be relied upon en combate y cuarteles (in com­bat and barracks). They soon found that no driving force was necessary; that the Nicaraguan could be led. Where confidence rested, he would follow in the face of almost certain death. The officers in charge of the guardia were quick to perceive their delight in all forms of insignia. There was provided a chevron for each contact and also a wound chevron. Wound chevrons were so highly prized that many guardia would unnecessarily expose themselves in a fight in the hopes of obtaining the coveted prize or adding to those al­ready won. In many instances, wounded guardia were no sooner released from the hospital than they set about immediately to obtain another chevron.

Of the leader there was required fear­lessness, common sense, a knowledge of human nature, an enduring patience and good humor, and a working fluency in the Spanish tongue. Beyond this the customs and traits of the Nicaraguan had to be thoughtfully studied. It was found, under careful handling, that the minds and hearts of the guardia functioned much along the same lines as their leaders. The individual guardia proved an active re­cent to the chemistry of leadership. Strict discipline tempered with under­standing, immediate and fair punishment or misdeeds, a careful eye upon their comfort and well-being, kindness and an occasional word of appreciation, and the “Jefe” became the demigod of his men.

The story of the training and leading of the guardia is by no means one of con­tinuous harmony and loyalty. There were rare exceptions which seemed to prove the rule, dramatically and sometimes tragi­cally. These acts of treachery and mutiny rather serve to emphasize the loyalty and responsiveness of the great mass of Nicaraguans that made up the guardia and the quality of tact and understanding that was found in the leaders. Sporadic outbursts against the alien leadership added to the sporting chance accepted by the marines who trained and led the guardia. Theirs was no bed of roses, no sinecure; by intelligence and good faith they held their charges—and kept their health.

The Nicaraguans that composed the mass of the Guardia Nacional were, like most of us, not brilliant thinkers. The Shardia regulations contained much that was new, many things that were beyond his comprehension, and actions that seemed unjust and a personal affront easily led to gun play. A checkage of pay for overdrawn clothing, usually sold to recoup bad guesses on a cockfight, was a matter likely to send the particular guardia on the warpath. Such occurrences were fortunately infrequent and when dis­covered in time by loyal guardia were promptly circumvented. By their code, talebearing was taboo, but they had other methods of dealing effectively with such problems.

There is the tale of a young Nicaraguan who was devoted to his marine leader. On the trail he was ever close to his “Jefe,” waiting on him and watchful of chance danger. One evening their patrol was joined by another guardia detachment as re-enforcement. This new detachment was commanded by a Nicaraguan sergeant who had recently been refused a new pair of shoes and was therefore in a murderous state of mind. The guardia discovered that the sergeant was out to square accounts by spilling gringo blood, so securing a Thompson machine gun he posted himself between the officer and sergeant, covering the latter during the night, cheerfully threatening to kill him if he made a hostile move. Again a row over a clothing issue was the cause of a sudden mutiny in which a marine, serving as a first lieutenant in the guardia, was killed. His native junior officer, although given the choice of join­ing the mutineers or withdrawing, fought by his superior’s side for three hours. Then, his American officer dead and he desperately wounded, the faithful one made good his escape. Men of his caliber were not the exception but the rule.

At Jicaro in Nueva Segovia, one of the guardia, who had been reduced from the rank of sergeant and absorbed too much Easter guira, managed to get hold of the machine gun, and without warning turned it into the officers’ quarters. This act of mutiny cost three marines their lives. That is one side of the picture; but here again is the other. Sergeant Justo Ortiz served in the garrison of Santa Cruz on the Coco River. He had a brilliant record for fidelity and bravery, but was practically illiterate. His promotion had been made in the field, and he would have been subjected to an examination under the guardia rule, which would have effectively reduced him to private had not his officer interceded for him. He was continued as sergeant in the district, and gave to his commanding officer a blind fidelity and devotion. He had one failing and that was native rum, and on one or two occasions his officer was compelled to reprimand him. One day he failed to file an important report, and again the officer reprimanded him. Later, Sergeant Ortiz was found dead and by his side was a note which read, “Teniente, forgive me, I have failed you and therefore my reasons to live have ceased. I die so that you will be relieved of the burden of looking after me.” This note had been written at the sergeant’s request by a civilian who had not taken him seriously.

There was much to keep the imagina­tion of the marine leader lively and his nerves taut when alone on the trails or in garrison at night. They were young men, these leaders, and the dangers that surrounded them served to add zest to the job that they had voluntarily taken over.

As a people, the Nicaraguans have a lively sense of humor. They take a mis­chievous delight in seeing other persons become angered and seem to thrill to any rapidly changing situation. To them a person who never smiles or sees the lighter side of life is one to be avoided. A display of anger is a sign of weakness of character and a sudden change from irritation to laughter is a tidbit to be long discussed and enjoyed. Those who came closest to the native were quick to feel his friendli­ness and admiration and his favorable re­action to kindness and a smile. “Never let them get your goat,” was a maxim of the guardia officers.

The sardonic sense of humor of the Nicaraguan is well illustrated by the pre­dicament in which one of the guardia officers found himself. He was a large man, weighing well over 200 pounds and he

had but recently joined the guardia. Shortly after being assigned to guardia duty he was leading a patrol many miles north of Quilali. He being a new-comer, his guardia were under the impression he spoke little or no Spanish. While resting by the side of the trail he heard them calmly discussing the proposition of “bumping him off.” He turned around in a perfectly matter of fact way and said calmly, “I wouldn’t advise your shooting me right now, for I am very heavy and you would have to carry me back to Quilali. Of course, no guardia can leave their leader dead in the trail even should they kill him themselves.” His remark brought a good-humored roar of laughter from his men, who thereafter placed him upon a pedestal and followed him loyally through many hot combats.

In the August issue of the Naval Insti­tute Proceedings, Admiral Pratt writes: “The leader must impart to his subordi­nates the assurance that he knows they will co-operate fully.” This the marines who served with the guardia had to do, and further, to implant in the minds of their charges that the officer who led them had faith in their loyalty. Many an offi­cer's life depended in a crisis on the indoctrination of the native trooper with this fixed idea. On the whole, taking the field alone with fifteen or twenty natives in bandit-infested country is a sporting proposition to be undertaken only by men not afraid of a sporting chance. They gambled their lives on their personality. Loyalty and respect once given was returned to the leader tenfold.

A lieutenant in the Marine Corps, in command of the Guardia Post, one day received an order to take the field immediately upon patrol duty. He expected a fight. His best automatic rifleman was then in the brig undergoing punishment. In the preparations for departure the officer passed the brig and saw his star rifleman behind the barred door. Be caught instantly the man’s desire to ac­company the patrol, and stopped for a moment to speak to him.

“The sun is hot, Senor Capitan, but it ls cool here in the carcel,” said the guardia with a mischievous grin.

“Quite so,” replied the officer. “Do you think I am going out on the hot trail and let you sit in this cool brig?”

The prisoner was immediately all smiles. No, no, Senor, that would be bad. I am to go?”

The officer released the culprit, gave him his automatic rifle, and purposely greeted that he march immediately in his rear. Not for a moment did he let the Prisoner think that he feared treachery. It so happened that in the subsequent contact with the bandits this automatic rifleman saved the life of the officer by shooting down a bandit who was about to kill him.

The history of the patrols of the guardia is replete with actions of devotion and loyalty on the part of the Nicaraguan trooper who ever strove to emulate the example set by his leader. One of the outstanding officers of the guardia, when the marines relinquished its guidance, was Policarpo Gutierrez, affectionately called “Tunka,” the one-arm. The losing of Tunka’s left arm is a story still retold when those who served with these fine rave men get together and their minds drift back along the jungle trails of Nicaragua

A mixed patrol of marines and guardia was operating in Nueva Segovia. This day the guardia furnished the “point,” as the snake-like column wound around the mountain approach to Las Crucca. Well in advance of the point was First Lieutenant Bruce, who commanded the guardia. His post was the post of greatest danger, but Bruce was never one to ask of others that which he would not himself undertake. The head of the patrol wound around the spur of the mountain and there death lay hidden in the brush beside the trail. The scene was set this day for the enactment of a deed that bound more securely than ever the bond of friendship and esteem existing between the marines of the north­land and their proteges, the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua.

Bruce, a First Sergeant in the Marine Corps, possessed those qualities that en­deared him to his native troopers. To live under the inspiration of his leadership was all that his guardia asked for. Policarpo Gutierrez was then a sergeant and a member of Bruce’s patrol. He was to be the only one who witnessed the tragic death of his beloved American officer. Gutierrez was well in advance of the remainder of the point, having pushed ahead to keep his lieutenant in sight. As Bruce rounded the spur the bandits opened fire and cut him down. Without a thought for his own safety, Gutierrez rushed to the side of the stricken officer, at the moment when a group of bandits, armed with machetes, swooped down to give the corte chaleco to the dead. They fell upon the native sergeant who stood defiantly over his fallen comrade in arms. As the patrol swung forward around the bend and went into action, they came upon the evidence of a short fierce fight. The machete men were fleeing through the underbrush to their main lines. Gutier­rez, his left arm hanging limply by his side, was kneeling protectingly by his dead officer. Silent forms lay sprawled in the trail, bearing testimony that Gutierrez, though seriously wounded, had ex­acted a price.

When the combat was over the wounded men suffered in silence during the long march to the nearest outpost having a landing field. Without a murmur of com­plaint, Gutierrez, with his left arm almost severed, passed through the long hours of the march. But he paid the penalty of the loss of his left arm when gangrene set in.

Later, Gutierrez was decorated by President Moncado with the Nicaraguan Cross of Valor. Gutierrez lived to pass through the Nicaraguan National Mili­tary Academy as one of the first cadets to enter the newly-organized officers’ training center. He graduated, is now a captain in the Nicaraguan National Guard, with a magnificent record of service to his credit. By one of those strange twists of fate that sometimes leaves us wondering, Sandino, the famous bandit, came to his inglorious end on “Bruce Field,” so named by the guardia in memory of Lieutenant Bruce who fell while leading his native troops.

On the same day that Captain Gutierrez was decorated by President Moncado, the Chief Executive of Nicaragua also pinned a Cross of Valor upon the chest of Second Lieutenant Donald L. Truesdale of the guardia. Side by side stood these two men, Gutierrez of Nicaragua, his left sleeve empty, and Truesdale of South Carolina, U. S. A., his right arm lost in service with the guardia.

Donald Truesdale was a corporal of marines serving in April, 1932, as a second lieutenant of the Guardia Nacional. He was second in command of a patrol operat­ing on the Coco River not far from Quilali, Nicaragua, when a rifle grenade dropped from the belt carried by the grenadier. The men of the patrol were standing in the trail as the grenade struck a rock and ex­ploded the detonator with considerable noise. Without a moment’s thought of himself, but realizing the danger to his men, Truesdale sprang forward and seized the grenade, protecting his men with his body. The grenade exploded before he could throw it away, blowing off his right hand and seriously wounding him in many places. Truesdale could easily have thrown himself to the ground and escaped all injury, but such was not his character. While he took the full shock of the ex­plosion, he was a man of splendid phy­sique, and although he lost his right hand he survived and is in the Marine Corps today. His action brought to him the award of the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as the Nicaraguan decora­tion, but greatest of all, the deep love and respect of the people of Nicaragua.

Such acts of self-sacrifice were not un­common among the officers and men of the Guardia Nacional, but these two par­ticular instances are recounted because they seem so symbolic of these troopers of two nations, joined in the deathless glory of self-sacrifice somewhere in the valley mists of a Nicaraguan mountain trail.

Not long ago there was a scurrilous propaganda carried on against the service of the Navy and Marine Corps in Central America. It is to be hoped that those who styled the marines

The two-fisted gunmen of the Caribbean whose conduct there has imperiled the good relations with the people of the countries bordering on those waters and made life difficult for our State Department to maintain good relations with them

may have the opportunity of learning the true relationship of the marine and the Nicaraguan.

One of the most difficult tasks under­taken in the training of the Nicaraguan National Guard was the education and development of the Nicaraguan officer. The Academia Militar Nacional de Nicaragua was created and developed under a first lieutenant of the Marine Corps serv­ing as a captain in the Nicaraguan Guardia. It is interesting to record this estimate of the Nicaraguan for so many of the young men destined to be officers pass through his school, representing a fine cross section of Nicaraguan manhood. He summed it up in a few words,

They were much like marines; fearless, cheerful, loyal, and intelligent, and they responded so heartily to fair treatment, discipline, and good humor, that they kept one on his toes.

So deeply impressed were the young Nicaraguans with the personality of this first lieutenant and his fairness in dealing with them that, after he returned to the United States, his mother received an etched memorial from the Nicaraguan Cadet Corps. At the top were crossed the flags of Nicaragua and the United States, directly beneath, two hands were clasped ln friendship, and, in deference to the officer’s racial extraction, the harp of Erin was displayed upon a bed of roses. There followed, couched in Castilian eloquence their appreciation of the son’s services to their country. So one alien “enemy” had left with them a memory of justice, good humor, and fair play, to be cherished for many years.

Any self-respecting people will naturally resent the introduction into their native land of the armed forces of another nation, even though such alien is motivated by friendship and a sincere desire to be help­ed. The Nicaraguan had seen his country often invaded by the American naval forces, but this last occupation, which ended in January, 1933, was characterized by a remarkable exhibition of tact, good- will, and justice, which with time healed the wounds to the pride of an in­dependent, war-like race. Superb leader­ship, unflinching devotion to duty, acts of kindness, marked the contacts of the officers and men of the Marine Corps who served in Nicaragua, and particularly those who had the difficult duty of handling the Guardia Nacional. They im­planted in the hearts of the Nicaraguan, particularly the guardia, faith in their fair-dealing. Those who shared the hard­ships and discomforts of the trails with the Nicaraguan, who fought by his side to their mutual benefit, respect, and ad­miration, probably gave the greatest im­petus to this better understanding. An alien of their country, placed there by political necessity, through the enforce­ment of their own laws and police regula­tions, implanted in their hearts and minds confidence in the unswerving honesty of these aliens that bore its outward mani­festation in the most binding of their oaths, For la Palabra del Gringo. To the Nicaraguan the word for all Americans is “gringo,” and the word of the “gringo” is as good as his bond.

That was practical leadership, with a capital “L.