Ok, now the facts. Brazilian military forces are divided into three groups: Army, Navy and Aeronautics. There was a group of people from the Aeronautics, the "PARASAR", that was dedicated to saving peoples' lives in dangerous rescues.
When the dictatorship of 1964-1980-1985-1989 [*] was escalating its war against the communist terrorist groups [1967 or so], the leader of the Parasar team was suddenly arrested and a cloud of censorship was cast against him. There was no freedom of press, but there was some freedom of gossip, so some people could know the reason: Captain Sergio Macaco had accused his superior officer Brigadier Burnier of ordering him to explode the Gasometer [a huge gas reservoir inside Rio de Janeiro] so that they could blame the Communists and use this to murder some Commie or Democratic leaders. Fact: during the Dark Ages, there were episodes of torture with Army men, and less with Navy men, and even less with Aeronautics men. Some people think that the heroism of Sergio Macaco had influence over his branch of the military forces. When the dictatorship became weaker, around 1980, the whole story surfaced, and Sergio Macaco - who had been expelled from the military forces - claimed to be reintegrated _with restored income and promotions_. Nobody denied his act of heroism [**], but the military leaders weren't happy to grant him everything he wanted. He got everything back one day after he died of cancer, around 1994. So now history books refer to him as "Brigadier Sergio Carvalho", instead of "Captain Sergio Macaco". Alberto Monteiro [*] the end of the dictatorship was a slow process [**] just to be a contrarian: from 1989-1993, my neighbour was a military aidee to Brigadier Burnier [the villain of the story], and he had a totally different opinion about Burnier and Sergio. He didn't tell much ["freedom of thought should not go beyond thinking"], but I guess he doubted the whole story. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
