Slain Commando Wrote Farewell Letter

When soldiers die in defense of their nation, heroes are born.

Lt. Col. Juan Valer Sandoval, who was buried with military honors Thursday, had a premonition of his imminent death. As the commander of a team of Peruvian army commandos awaited the order to attack the barricaded mansion where leftist rebels held 72 hostages, he wrote a farewell letter to his men.

On Tuesday, Valer had the most dangerous assignment of a dangerous mission: to rescue the Peruvian foreign minister, Francisco Tudela, and the Japanese ambassador, Morihisa Aoki. They were the two hostages whom the rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement were likely to execute first in the event of a military assault.

Valer, 38, was a highly decorated veteran of anti-terrorist combat whom President Alberto Fujimori had entrusted to command the security detail of Fujimori’s son Kenji, 16. He was chosen to lead one of the attack squads.

Valer and his heavily armed men spent more than a day in one of the lighted, ventilated tunnels beneath the mansion, waiting for the order to attack. Hunched silently in the tunnel, he scrawled a letter to the soldiers with whom he had trained for the operation since December. The letter was found in his uniform after he died.

It began, “To my men: If tomorrow you read this letter, it will be because I will have already died in the rescue operation.”

Valer went on to express his love for Peru, a nation that he said the Tupac Amaru had hurt “in the eyes of the world.”

“If I am no longer with you,” he wrote, “I want you to remember that I left with happiness, fighting for an operation that we planned together . . . that unites us more than ever and that we will see triumph.”

Valer closed the letter with the words: “Know that I am calm. I only want people to say that Valer was a good man. God bless you.”

Valer charged through the smoke and carnage, found Tudela and hustled him out a second-floor exit onto a terrace. A rebel confronted them and exchanged fire with Valer. Seven bullets in the stomach mortally wounded Valer as he shielded Tudela, who was hit in the ankle. Despite his wounds, Valer rushed Tudela, whose shirt was stained with the commando’s blood, down a stairway to safety. Valer collapsed moments later.

At Thursday’s funeral, Fujimori said Valer’s death had affected him deeply. Two days earlier, the president, a man of iron self-control, had stunned Peruvians when he broke down in tears as he announced the soldier’s death.

Kenji Fujimori--who studied martial arts with his bodyguard and grew to be his close friend--shouted a short speech through sobs and kissed the coffin.

And as her mother wept beside her, the slain commando’s 11-year-old daughter, Valeria, sat clutching a Peruvian flag.

Valer and a second commando who died, Lt. Raul Jimenez, 27, were posthumously promoted--Valer from lieutenant colonel to colonel, and Jimenez from lieutenant to captain.

The funerals for Jimenez and the only hostage to die, Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti Acuna, were also held Thursday. Giusti died of a heart attack after being shot during the raid.

All 14 rebels were killed. Ombudsman Jorge Santistevan said Thursday the government will help the rebels’ families pay funeral costs.