Forgotten Soldiers

In the 1961 Portugal, governed by the dictator Salazar, started a war in one of his colony, Angola. Soon problems emerge also in the others African Colonies, Guiné Bissau and Mozambique, the war quickly expanded on the three fronts. This bloody war, that was going to be named Portuguese Colonial War, ended only in the 1974 when the Portuguese regimen full down.

While in the rest of Europe the youth was fighting for their rights and for a new society, in Portugal an entire generation of men between 18 and 30 years old was receiving a mandatory call to go to the war. 
During the postcolonial war, in the three fronts (Angola, Mozambique and Guiné Bissau) the number of men sent was 149 thousand (the Portugal population is 10 millions including elders, women and children); 8289 died on the fields and 15507 report injuries; in these statistics are not counted all the ones that later suffered of PTSD.

For the ones injured the worst still have had to come. In fact back to Portugal, the regimen first and the Portuguese govern after the 1974 didn’t wanted to show to the population the effect of the war. The people injured were hidden and segregated in military hospitals where only few people was able to access and also after they was dismissed several fundamental rights wasn’t recognized: many amputated soldiers have had to wait years before receiving the prosthesis for their lost limbs and many veterans they have had to fight for their rights to obtain their deserved soldier annuity. The Portuguese Govern recognized the PTSD as disease only in 1999, 25 years after the end of the war, a large number of veterans of the Colonial War still suffer of PTSD while there are still former soldiers that fought for their country that are not receiving the proper treatment for this disease. The Portuguese veterans represent the long-term effect of the war.