So what is it that people in the U.S. think when hearing about El Salvador or Nicaragua? A war back in the 1980's? Guess you have to be in my age group to know what all that was about. Many of you have seen in the 80's the influx of refugees coming in from war torn Central America. So indirectly, many of you are bi-products of this war. Many of my high school friends had been recruited into the intelligence community and even in military service during this time frame. In fact, many had been in those countries interrogating insurgents in U.S. doctrine to keep communism in check. But who paid the price? Lots of civilians.
When alot of my friends were supporting intelligence, I was aventually thrown into the thick of it in Honduras during that time when Nicaragua and El Salvador was having their wars. Honduras was a crucial player where many contras operated out of there. So what does this all mean?
I was talking the other day to a security guard exactly my age in San Salvador when he was telling me that during the war, insurgents made it into the capitol to destroy infastructure and knock out power for days. Imagine living like this? Never mind hurricanes or natural disasters, but actual warfare. I saw plenty of youngsters walking around, life is good now, no hardships encountered such as that experienced by their parents. In fact, many of these war refugees that came over in the 1980's have children that are Americanized and never experienced those hardships themselves.
So the next time you see a Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Colombian, Mexican, Guatemalan, think about how they made it to the states, and how many family members they may have lost due to these wars. Many suffered torture, human rights abuses and flat out bombardments and executions.
I saw as I was walking around the malls down there people just trying to pound out a living, wanting to survive. Hopefully the war is behind them after now 20 years since peace was made. The scars of war take a long time to hear and hopefully, these people are on the right path.