Town Honors Army Captain’s Exceptional Gallantry, Chivalry

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

A sergeant told his officer he wanted to save a civilian who was limping because of a gun shot on his leg. The wounded was helpless at the rubbles and wreckage of houses where enemies were hiding, too.

The captain not only granted the request but crawled with him to cover the gunny with fire (in case the bad guys shot at them) as he retrieved the one – leg capable man.

An armed- to- the- teeth soldier in a war. Photo Credit: Daily Express

The officer was startled after he saw weak, helpless, thirsty, and famished children and women just waiting for miracle to pluck them out to the hellhole the terrorists brought them into.

As the wounded man was carefully hurried up by the sergeant to the military side, the captain wondered why he did not hear a shot of a gun fire against them.

Seeing an opportunity to the extra ordinary gestures of the enemies, he negotiated with them to free the other hostages after they told him they were thirsty and hungry too in a war that saw them running away  for weeks from the gung-ho soldiers backed up by modern military hardware not only provided by their government but with foreign powers.

What urban warfare I was implying here?

A.      Second Battle of Fallujah; B. Second Russian versus Chechen War; C. Battle of Huế  D: None of the Answers

My Anwer: D

The phenomenal cessation of hostilities and exemplary bravery did not happen abroad but ensue last October 19 at the War of Marawi – an Islamic poor city located at the Philippines' Southern Island Mindanao.

The officer is Army Captain Jeffrey Buada, commander of the 15th Scout Ranger Company.

His chutzpah: He laid down his assault rifle and removed his Kevlar helmet and bullet proof vest (probably imported after the Shore Based Missiles funds were shelved under the Aquino Administration) to show his sincere intention to just save the hostages where his fatherly instinct prevailed over his warrior spirit sculpted at the Black Panther School at Camp Mateo Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal Province after he imagined that those kids there were his 11 and 4 years old daughters in Luzon.

As quid pro quo, the ISIS terrorists asked the official for water and food.

After his selected men, who were unarmed, delivered the goods he showed good faith, chivalry, and magnanimity by taking a swig from plastic bottle (or quaff in a cup probably since I was not there, teh-he he) in front of the menacing enemies to show it was not diluted with poison.

When he and his men, who followed suit in removing their helmets and vests, started to hurry out the hostages for safety from the menace of the enemies just lurking around them.

After the last civilian was being plucked out from the area of fire, a shot rang somewhere and the deafening acrimony of the flurries of gun fire, the smell of gun powders, and the grinding and roaring of tanks shrouded the area

The temporary gentlemen’s agreement not to fire at each other in exchange for water to a hostage had ended and that encounter was concluded with one dead and 40 wounded

               on the part of the soldiers.

On the terrorists’ side, I could only speculate probably they were decimated through gun shot, wound infection, sheer starvation, unquenchable thirst or tetanus from those protruding and jutting rusty iron objects or the vaunted lansang (nail na Numero Singko) in Bisaya President Rodrigo Duterte feared when he said he avoided in directly joining the manhunt.

This human drama in the War in Marawi can rival the iconic Christmas Truce in World War 1.

Aside from the English, er, the Britons, that memorable one week ceasefire in the No Man’s Land is known in Germany and France as the Weihnachtsfrieden and Trêve de Noël where combatants there had series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front in France one week before December 25, 1914.

The saga of that Christmas Truce was scribbled by Captain Robert Patrick Miles of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and published by the Daily Mail and Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News in January 1915.

Unlike Philippine Army Captain Buada who months earlier was wounded by a bullet shot on the knee and recuperated in the hospital before that October 19 drama, British Captain Miles died from a German bullet wound a week after that “Great Fraternization” with the enemies.

Here’s Miles:

“The thing started last night – a bitter cold night, with white frost – soon after dusk when the Germans started shouting 'Merry Christmas, Englishmen' to us. Of course our fellows’ shouted back and presently large numbers of both sides had left their trenches, unarmed, and met in the debatable, shot-riddled, no man's land between the lines. Here the agreement – all on their own – came to be made that we should not fire at each other until after midnight tonight. The men were all fraternizing in the middle (we naturally did not allow them too close to our line) and swapped cigarettes and lies in the utmost good fellowship. Not a shot was fired all night”.

Other accounts narrated about British and Germans exchanged newspapers and even played soccer on some fields at the No Man’s Land.

Now let’s go back to Mangaldan town in Pangasinan where I met its Mayor Bona Fe D. Parayno and what the burgeoning local government unit in Northern Luzon has prepared for Buan on Tuesday (November 14) when the officer and a gentleman would be feted by the town known for its pindang (dried meat).

A proud Mayor Parayno told me in her office that the feat of the captain was exemplary and she, on behalf of her 106, 331 constituents (2015 Census), will honor with an award the town hero to be held at the presidencia or the municipal hall.

‘Siyempre exemplary, that is an exceptional bravery na hinde nakikita sa maski normal na sundalo. Ibig sabihin pag ganyan ang kanyang tapang nasa puso ang serbisyo. That’s the reason why gusto ko ring parangalan siya at bigyan ng papuri dito sa bayan,” the lady mayor stressed.

Noel de Guzman, at the community affairs of the mayor’s office, called me by phone after he told me during my tête-à-tête with the mayor that he would go back again at the house of Buada in Barangay Banaoang to talk with his father John especially on the decorum of the event on Tuesday.

He said that the Buadas came from Benguet Province just like other Pangasinenses who “trekked” the mountainous area especially decades ago to work to the mine fields of the multi companies there.

Noel told me that the captain studied at the Philex Mines Elementary School, Saint Louis High School, two years in college at the Saint Louis University, and the joined the Philippine Military Academy in 2002 and graduated at 2007.

“His father is originally from San Jacinto, Pangasinan while the mother was a native of Mangaldan. His father is a retired employee of Philex,” Noel added to the mammoth mining company just kilometers above my birthplace at the elite military academy in Barangay Kias, Baguio City.

READ MY OTHER ARTICLE: Ranger Capt Uses Men as Bait to Locate Muslims' Snipers

Author with Army Scout Ranger Jeff Buada when the latter was feted at the town hall
 last November 14 by the Mayor of Mangaldan, Pangasinan.
"Jeff pag gagawing pelikula ang buhay mo sinong actor ang gusto nong gaganap
 sa buhay mo?" One of the posers of the author to  the elite member of the Ranger.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).