Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez

Peasant from the Purial de Vicara area, a hilly region of the Sierra Maestra. He was one of the peasants who helped the rebels led by Fidel Castro when they were fighting to overthrow the Batista government.

He was born on his grandfather's farm where his father, Jesús Acuña, started a family with Lydia Núñez.

He lived in a humble bohío with an earthen floor and a guano roof. He was the eldest son of the couple, and lived in this place until the time came to leave with the troops of the Rebel Army to fight against Batista's forces.

His two brothers and he were always very close. Together they did everything they could think of. They only attended up to fifth grade in school because they had to help their father with coffee harvesting on the hills and with farm work and sugarcane cutting. The life of peasants at that time in the Republic was dreadful.

Lydia, his sister, remembers that Vilo adored his mother and was his father's inseparable companion. His brothers consider him a selfless, kind-hearted person and a joker, always with a décima ready to sing to life.

As soon as he learned of Fidel's landing and the other expeditionaries on the Las Coloradas beaches, he set out to help him in everything necessary. It is said that he was in Pilón cutting sugarcane and suddenly during his work he said: "I'm leaving." He went home, explained his desires to his father and asked him to take care of his wife and daughters.

On April 24, 1957 he set out to find the fighters to struggle against the Batista regime. Vilo Acuña did not understand much about politics, barely knew how to read and write, but he had suffered firsthand the difficult situation of poor men in Cuba and quickly and well learned the teachings of Fidel, Raúl and the Che.

In May he arrived at the troop commanded by Fidel Castro. In those days the first major confrontation of the Rebel Army was taking shape; the Battle of El Uvero Barracks, where this inexperienced army would receive its baptism of fire.

After the action, Fidel entrusted Ernesto Guevara with taking charge of the wounded, among whom were Juan Almeida Bosque and Kike Escalona, to transport them to a safe place until their recovery. Vilo was among the five men assigned to care for the wounded, because of his knowledge of the area and his skills as a fighter. Soon the Che began to trust him with risky and highly responsible tasks, which allowed him to demonstrate his strength as a fighter, discipline and cheerfulness even in the most difficult moments.

The Che appointed him head of the vanguard squad, but he proposed another comrade, perhaps out of modesty, since according to him he did not deserve such an honor. Acuña and his squad guided the column, trying, as the Che ordered, to avoid the guards and without touching or taking anything from the peasants of the area where they operated. He always encouraged the guerrilla troops with his jokes and banter to the fighters who went almost a week without finding food in those regions.

In July 1957 Fidel Castro promoted the Che to commander and Vilo to lieutenant. When the second column of the Rebel Army was created, which was assigned number four, the Leader of the Revolution appointed the young Argentine doctor as its head and the sturdy peasant moved to the rear guard as second in command under Ciro Redondo.

Vilo Acuña participated in the battles of El Uvero, El Hombrito, Mar Verde, Oro de Guisa, Las Minas. In the Battle of Pino del Agua he saved Camilo Cienfuegos' life when he was wounded. He prepared a hammock and carried, without relief, all the way to La Pata de la Mesa, the wounded body of the guerrilla fighter.

After a year of fighting in the Sierra Maestra and by direct order of Fidel Castro, the Che promoted him to captain and after the defeat of the tyranny's offensive in the summer of 1958, when the guerrilla forces were reorganized to carry out new and more effective strikes against Batista, Vilo Acuña was appointed rear guard chief of commander Guillermo García Frías's column in the III Front, under the command of Juan Almeida Bosque.

In November 1958 he was named commander by Fidel and organized his own column, which had today's brigadier general Lino Carreras as rear guard chief.

After January 1959 would come years of intense work for the leaders of the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban people in general. Vilo Acuña pursued studies that made him a capable officer, concluding in 1964 the Superior War School and was selected as a member of the first Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965, for the countless services rendered to the Homeland.

In 1966 Commander Ernesto Che Guevara chose him to serve in the internationalist guerrilla that would undertake the struggle in the Bolivian jungles; he appointed him his second in command and chief of the guerrilla rear guard.

He was very close to turning 42 years old and would be the oldest fighter in the troop. With full confidence in his qualities and abilities, the Che left him in charge of a group of fighters among whom was Tania the Guerrilla, ordering him, as in the Sierra Maestra, to care for the sick and the four men of the "stragglers."

On April 17, 1967 the Heroic Guerrilla writes in his diary:
"I sent for the 4 stragglers so they would stay with Joaquín (Vilo Acuña) and I ordered him to conduct an exploration of the area to prevent excessive movement and to wait for us for three days, after which he should remain in the area but without engaging in frontal combat and wait for our return." José Castillo Chávez, Paco, who was one of the "straggler" men and the only survivor of the treacherous ambush at the ford of Puerto Mauricio, describes Joaquín as a calm man, firm in decisions and principles, who greatly respected the Che, which is why he thought long and hard before deciding to abandon the area where the guerrilla chief had indicated they should remain.

That man had a character typical of Cuban peasants and suffered greatly from his feet in the last months of the guerrilla; the only pair of size 44 shoes he had became worn out and he found it impossible to get others because none fit him.

He walked for kilometers along the rivers barefoot. On August 31, 1967, at five in the afternoon, the guerrilla group began the march with Braulio at the vanguard, darkness was already falling when they reached the bend in the river, the column began to cross the ford and Joaquín (Vilo Acuña) was the last fighter to enter the water. Unsuspecting the betrayal of Honorato Rojas, the peasant who was guiding them, and with his usual kindness he said goodbye to him, thanking him for his cooperation. He had barely entered the river a few meters when gunfire began. Bolivian army captain Mario Vargas Salinas and his soldiers, who were lying in wait in the brush, began firing from both banks.

Paco recounts that Joaquín is wounded but manages to get out of the river:
"He was walking with difficulty when I saw him fall. The soldiers kept firing from behind and in front."

The bank of the Maisicuri river was stained with the blood of an extraordinary man. In this ambush also fell the only woman of the guerrilla, Tamara Bunke.