Defense Minister Margarita Robles and her predecessor Dolores de Cospedal praise the courage of this elite army division
Nacho Vidal, former legionnaire
Peregrina Millán-Astray: "Celia Gámez was very pretty and my father was not dumb"
"That is a body, and not that of the Civil Guard," says the classic compliment. And there is no doubt that the Benemérita has a great body - there is nothing more to notice in the riot police, whose photos devastate Twitter, injecting testosterone into hashtags - but if we talk about the Body in capital letters, replicating the title that was granted to the model Elle Macpherson in the 90s, so we are talking about the Spanish Legion. In its century of existence, the Legion has filtered in such a way in our imaginary manners - his is a story of honor and sacrifice, of heroicity, pets and mysticism - that transcends its strictly military importance, and has become part of the National pop landscape. And that, you know, also projects an erotic charge that overflows when the legionaries parade with the goat every October 12.
Of course, this excusable frivolity should never overshadow what the Legion really is today. Margarita Robles, the current Minister of Defense, points out that "his men and women are very well trained and willing to serve people. When I called the detachment that is currently stationed in Iraq, in these tough times, the commander with the that I spoke showed great courage. 'We are great, always for Spain,' he told me. "
Surely, the aura of the Legion that still shines in our days emanates from the sum of two lives: we have the Legion of the beginnings, whose most dramatic episodes are written in blood ink, and the current Legion, "a reference point in the EU, equipped with the highest technology and looking to the future, with its horizon already set in 2035 and 2050, "according to Robles.
María Dolores de Cospedal, who was her predecessor in the ministry between 2016 and 2018, indicates that "people usually stay with mysticism, with the Christ of the Good Death, which is very colorful, and it is unknown to what extent it is a of the most prepared and most modern army units in operation. "
Alfonso XIII
But let's go back to mysticism. José Millán-Astray conceived the Legion as an elite division that the land army lacked at the beginning of the 20th century, and got Alfonso XIII to sign the royal decree that set in motion the creation of the body on January 28, 1920 - the First enlistment, however, occurred on September 20, which is the date on which legionary knights celebrate the anniversary. He had been inspired by the French Foreign Legion, but also by the Japanese warriors of the Edo era, the samurai, and his unwavering code of honor , the bushido.
"My father always talked about them," remembers Peregrina Millán-Astray, the youngest daughter of the general. "It was something that felt very ingrained, very intimate. They gave him an honor guide." In 1941 Millán-Astray even translated from English, with the help of Luis Álvarez del Espejo, an essay on the behavior of the samurai ( The bushido. The soul of Japan ).
"If there is a genuinely Spanish nature, and that nature has something to do with the dark, then the Legion is central in that aspect," explains the writer and editor Servando Rocha, responsible for the publishing house La Felguera, which in 2019 published an anthology titled Wild Spain. The other national episodes, which addressed the modern history of Spain from the perspective of necropolitics. "It is a culture that links with the decadent, with the macabre art, even with the goyesco. An exaltation of something that is in our nature" and that has had a reflection in the culture since the same 20 years of the last century, going through stages diverse.
The first and most obvious is that which has to do with legionary literature, an almost cursed subgenre of the Spanish novel, and that "abounds in casque and blood . " Let's see a brief fragment of After the eagle of Caesar, the classic 1924 by Luys Santa Marina: "Horrible expressions on the livid faces (the wounded in the womb); faces undone by a slap; stubby heads, throats mowed with gumía".
"There is no other military body in the world whose anthem is dedicated to death, " Rocha warns. "A central theme of legionary literature is good death, how to die with honor." And although these exaltations are usually included as an appendix of the Falangist culture, the Legion has also been part of the Spanish counterculture in its most subversive aspects.
"The guitarist of the Smash group, the founder of Andalusian rock, Julio Matito, was a legionnaire," says Rocha. "The legionary has always had some skull, and during the Franco regime there was a connection even with the jejesses and the gang members. The heroic characters of the youth of the 60s were the boxers, the suitcases and the legionaries. In the 70s, there was a connection with punk ".
So, although the roots of the Legion are watered with the blood of the wars of Africa in the 20s and that of the Civil War , its aura was even uncomfortable for the dictatorship. "The legionary was still a quarrelsome," says Rocha, a reflection of which Nacho Vidal also participated , who did military service in the Legion in the 90s , shortly before triumphing as a porn actor and, as anyone who has been in the body, he is considered legionnaire for life and even a loose verse even in the army.
"The legion breaks your ego," he says. "They get you up at five in the morning, they discipline you . You get there like a nini who has been drugging and partying as a teenager, like me, and when a command speaks, and says he will hand out cookies, you get the tongue in the ass. They are like shamans. " And then, friendship and loyalty begins. "Because we've made a pineapple, we've survived that hardness, and that's when the fun begins."
"The spirit of the Legion," adds Nacho Vidal, "is not in the statutes, but in the creeds . It is something that is formed every night, in the parade ground, when we gathered 3,500 uncles to watch watching the moon and we screamed to channel our spirits. " And all that is what is still perceived as something, also, tremendously erotic.
"There is a certain homoerotic in legionary literature," Servando Rocha adds, "is the fascination of men for other men. But there is also the attraction of women: even Millán-Astray, when he lost his arm and eye, was considered as a beautiful being, he had fans, groupies like Celia Gámez. "
So, if we go from the beautiful horror of the mutilated to the muscular legionaries of the parades - who triumph both among cis women and gay men - we have complete the circle that makes the Legion more than a military body. It is the Body, which is said soon.
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