Former soldiers from April returned to Santarém to celebrate freedom
Several former soldiers from the Santarém Cavalry Practice School returned to the city 50 years later.
Several former soldiers from the Santarém Practical Cavalry School returned to the city 50 years later to celebrate half a century of freedom in the city from where Salgueiro Maia’s column left to help overthrow the old regime. One of them was Alfredo Almeida, known as Almeida das Transmissões, who was a soldier at the time. “It was a different night. I went with a lot of expectations, we didn’t know anything about what was going on. The party cannot be described, such was the joy”, he tells O MIRANTE after a ceremony held in the Paços do Concelho de Santarém on the afternoon of April 24th. Lisbon native Alfredo Almeida feels “happy and young” to be in Santarém 50 years later. And it ends with a motto: “Don’t forget: April 25th always!”
Jorge Crisóstomo, from Vila de Rei, also only gradually realized what was happening. “My state of mind was to turn this all upside down. At the time he was already revolutionary. For me, being in the army was a punishment, I was here for two and a half years and it was a real punishment,” he says. Fifty years later, he considers that the courage and determination of the military was worth it to change the state that Portugal had reached. “I think we improved a lot. Anyone who says otherwise, I think they’re not seeing the film well,” he declares.
