Officer and cook Ferran Adrià and how serving in the military made him the best cook in the world: "I would do it again, he taught me how to run a kitchen"
Kitín Muñoz, from recruit to green beret and adventurous 'prince': "The military did not know about social classes"
The military of... Miguel Ángel Revilla: "I ran into Felipe González at the barracks, but he didn't catch my attention. He was very skinny"
In the Monte la Reina military camp, some of the most relevant veterans of the Spanish political ranks have been trained as soldiers.
From the first president of democracy, Adolfo Suárez, to the protagonist of 'The Red Decade', Felipe González.
Going through the long-lived president of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla and
the socialist Minister of Agriculture Carlos Romero Herrera.
Joaquín Leguina
(Villaescusa, 1941), a young man who in 1965
emerged as one of the antagonists of the blue decades of Francoism
, coincided with the latter .
The one who would later
become the only president of the PSOE of the Community of Madrid,
arrived at the barracks located in Toro (Zamora)
while still a steer in the political field.
Recently graduated in Economic Sciences from the University of Bilbao, the Cantabrian had to interrupt his training when he was called up for compulsory military service.
"
He had finished his degree and a scholarship to go to study in Paris.
It was easier than today to get it,"
Joaquín Leguina tells LOC.
"When I had to do the military service, it was four months in the summer and then one more month. It was the year 1965," he explains.
Far from
strolling down the Champs Elysées or under the Arc de Triomphe,
Leguina had a first summer full of endless walks through the woods and rifle practice.
"The treatment was good, but we got up at 6 in the morning
, we did marches of twenty kilometers at night. You arrived at the tent without wanting to joke, you wanted to sleep", he recounts.
"
There were about ten people in the store.
That's when I realized that the fat people all lost weight. Although they served you quality food, because
there were high-level chefs hired, you didn't get the fried egg that was there to dip the bread in
. "
In the barracks,
Leguina lived with his friends from the University.
With whom he enjoyed the free time they had.
"We used to spend the weekends in Zamora or Valladolid,
except if you had a guard or they put a package in you, an arrest."
To alleviate boredom, there was little that could be done in Toro.
There was a river beach there, but they couldn't swim.
"We were next to the Duero, but they wouldn't let us
go into the river for a very sensible reason,
because a soldier had drowned last year."
In time, he would see that this would not be the last deadly incident in the camp.
Joaquín Leguina (center) in the military, in Zamoa.Cedida
"I witnessed a terrible accident. A cannon was fired that was in poor condition next to where I was.
Three boys from Valladolid died. The colonel was fatal
," he reveals.
"It was very hard for me, very hard for them, for their families and for the Army. The cannon exploded,
but we never knew exactly what happened.
An investigation was opened, I suppose there will be a report out there," he assures.
"There were doctors there, there was everything. Although nothing could be done,"
he lamented.
Despite having had bad experiences in the first and third person
, Leguina considers that she learned a lot from that stage.
"The colonel treated us well, they were harsh in the military sense, yes
. "
In the camp, the Cantabrian met people who were then hiding in the political trenches,
but who were later on the front line of the first PSOE government
.
One of them, Carlos Romero, would become Minister of Agriculture with Felipe González.
"When he was Minister I was already President of the Community of Madrid, but before we coincided in the military".
Together with
Carlos Romero, he discovered his passion for Zamorano wine.
Although not in the expected way.
"The wine that was drunk then there in Toro, which was sold to you by some ladies, was very bad,"
he maintains.
Between bad drinks, both passed the military service.
"He was born in Zamora. Years later, when he was Minister, he took me back to Toro
. He told me that I had to try his wine again
and he took me to some wineries that were there.
Now the Toro wine is magnificent and belongs to to the Ribera del Duero category
. A monument should be made to winemakers," he says.
Joaquín Leguina todayPepe Frutos
Leguina assures that this
experience served him to want to promote the wines of Madrid when he became president of the Community,
which are now highly regarded.
However, it was not the teachings on oenology and viticulture that marked his passage through the Army.
"
I learned discipline, respect, habit,"
he sums up.
To this day, he feels especially proud
of a specific stage of his military service, in which he was able to teach several recruits to read
.
"When we did internships at the Victoria barracks, a colonel brought us together from the university militias
because there were 200 illiterate kids
."
He and other companions agreed to give them literacy classes at the request of the officer.
"They left knowing how to read, write, the four rules and with a driving license"
.
This was the politician's last stage in his mandatory military service, in which he did four months of internships.
However,
Leguina was about to stay longer than expected
.
"At the time of taking the final grades, a lieutenant called me. They had received a report from the Ministry and they had to remove me from corporal, which meant spending nine more months."
His anti-Francoist student militancy had prompted this decision.
During his last days in Toro,
a relative had to give him a capote
.
"It was a political issue.
I called my uncle Jesús, who had been a Falangist and knew all the soldiers.
In the end they made me a sergeant. I chose to go to Vitoria to be with my girlfriend."
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
Know more