Marcelino da Mata

In the army, he distinguished himself as a polyglot with understanding of many local and regional languages and dialects.

His experience would cause him to enroll in special operations training courses, eventually graduating as a commando.

In the following years, Marcelino da Mata would become distinguished for numerous acts of valor during the Portuguese Colonial War.

[4][5][6] He managed to avoid the same fate of other Portuguese African soldiers in Guinea-Bissau as he was in mainland Portugal undergoing convalescence due to a wound caused by a firearm accidentally shot by another Portuguese soldier shortly after the Carnation Revolution (which effectively ended the war) had taken place in Greater Lisbon, where he would live the rest of his entire life.

He was subjected to torture by elements of the Portuguese far-left in 1975 during a tumultuous revolutionary period called Processo Revolucionário em Curso (PREC).