A compañero dropped a box of ammunition at my feet. I pointed to it, and he answered me with an anguished expression, which I remember perfectly, and which seemed to say, “It's too late for ammunition.” He immediately took the path to the cane field. (He was later murdered by Batista's henchmen.)
This might have been the first time I was faced, literally, with the dilemma of choosing between my devotion to medicine and my duty as a revolutionary soldier. There, at my feet, was a backpack full of medicine and a box of ammunition. They were too heavy to carry both. I picked up the ammunition, leaving the medicine, and started to cross the clearing, heading for the cane field. I remember Faustino Pérez, on his knees in the bushes, firing his submachine gun. Near me, a compañero named [Emilio] Albentosa was walking toward the cane field. A burst of gunfire hit us both. I felt a sharp blow to my chest and a wound in my neck; I thought for certain I was dead. Albentosa, vomiting blood and bleeding profusely from a deep wound made by a .45-caliber bullet, screamed something like, “They've killed me,” and began to fire his rife although there was no one there. Flat on the ground, I said to Faustino, “I'm fucked,” and Faustino, still shooting, looked at me and told me it was nothing, but I saw in his eyes he considered me as good as dead. Still on the ground, I fired a shot toward the woods, on an impulse like that of my wounded companion. I immediately began to think about the best way to die, since in that minute all seemed lost. I remembered an old Jack London story in which the hero, aware that he is about to freeze to death in Alaskan ice, leans against a tree and prepares to die with dignity. That was the only thing that came to my mind. Someone, on his knees, shouted that we should surrender, and I heard a voice — later I found out it belonged to Camilo Cienfuegos — shouting, “No one surrenders here!” followed by a swear word. [José] Ponce approached me, agitated and breathing hard. He showed me a bullet wound that appeared to have pierced his lungs. He told me he was wounded and I replied, indifferently, that I was as well. Then Ponce, along with other unhurt compañeros , crawled toward the cane field. For a moment I was alone, just lying there waiting to die. Almeida approached, urging me to go on, and despite the intense pain I dragged myself into the cane field.

None of us, however, wanted to fight; we did so out of necessity.

The people in the Sierra Maestra grow like wild flowers, untended and without care, and they wear themselves out rapidly, working without reward. We began to feel in our bones the need for a definitive change in the life of the people. The idea of agrarian reform became clear, and communion with the people ceased being theory and became a fundamental part of our being.

Our precise instructions were not to fire on the outlying buildings, since they sheltered women and children, including the manager's wife who knew about the attack but didn't wish to leave, in order to avoid suspicion later. As we moved to take up our attack positions, our greatest concern was for the civilians.

On June 26, I debuted as dentist, although in the Sierra Maestra I was given the more modest title of "tooth-puller." My first victim was Israel Pardo, today a captain in the army, who came out of it pretty well. The second one was Joel Iglesias, who would have needed  a stick of dynamite to remove the canine tooth; in fact, he saw out the end of the war with the tooth still in place since my efforts to extract it had been fruitless. Besides the meagerness of my skill, we had no anesthetic, so I frequently used "psychological anesthesia" - a few harsh epithets when my patients complained too much about the work going on in their mouths.

We sent a letter of congratulations and appreciation to "Carlos", Frank País's underground name, who was living his final days. It was signed by all the officers of the guerrilla army who knew how to write (many of the Sierra Maestra peasants were not very skilled in this art but were already an important component of the guerrillas). The signatures appeared in two columns, and as we wrote down the ranks in the second one, when my turn came, Fidel simply said: "Make it commander." In this most informal way, almost in passing, I became commander of the second column of the guerrilla army, which would later become known as Column Nr. 4.

Once again youthful blood has fertilized the fields of the Americas in order to make freedom possible. Another battle has been lost; we must make time to weep for our fallen compañeros while we sharpen our machetes. From the valuable and tragic experience of the cherished dead, we must firmly resolve not to repeat their errors, to avenge the death of each one of them with many victories, and to achieve definitive liberation.

A fighter named Tatín was on the road. As I climbed down to the road he said to me defiantly, "There he is, under the truck, let's go, let's go, let's see who's a man!" I summoned up my courage, deeply offended by his implication that I was reluctant . When we tried to approach the anonymous enemy fighter, however, who was firing on us with his machine gun from beneath the truck, we had to acknowledge that the price for displaying our manliness was too great. Neither my challenger nor I passed the test.

After taking the first truck, we found two dead and one wounded soldier, who in his agony was still going through the motions of the battle as he lay dying. One of our fighters finished him off without giving the man an opportunity to surrender - which being semi-conscious he was unable to do. The combatant responsible for this mindless act of violence had seen his family decimated by Batista's army. I reproached him fiercely for the act, unaware that another wounded soldier concealed and motionless under some tarpaulins in the truck, could hear me. Emboldened by my words and the apology of the compañero, the enemy soldier made his presence known and begged us not to kill him." [The soldier had a fractured leg and couldn't move.] Every time a fighter passed near him, he would shout: 'Don't kill me! Don't kill me! Che says not to kill prisoners!' When the battle was over, we transported him to the sawmill and gave him first aid."

War is difficult and harsh and when the aggression of the enemy is on the rise it is not possible to tolerate even the suspicion of treason. Months earlier, when the guerrilla movement was much weaker, it might have been possible to save his life, or months later, when we were far stronger. But Arístidio had the bad luck that his weakness as a revolutionary combatant coincided precisely with a point at which we were strong enough to drastically punish an act like his, but not strong enough to sanction him in another way, since we had no jail or any other type of confinement.

Later we carried out the symbolic execution of three boys of the gang, who had been most involved in Chang's outrages, but whom Fidel felt should be given a chance. The three were blindfolded and subjected to the distress of a simulated firing squad. After shots were fired into the air, the boys found that they were still very much alive. One of them, in a spontaneous demonstration of joy, gave me a noisy kiss, as if I were his father.

When I felt I was out of danger, without knowing the fate of my compañeros or the result of the offensive, I stopped to rest, barricaded behind a large rock in the middle of the woods. My asthma, mercifully, had let me run a few meters, but it was taking its revenge and my heart was jumping inside my chest. I heard branches breaking as someone approached, but it was no longer possible to keep fleeing (which was what I really felt like doing). This time, it was another compañero, lost: a recruit who had recently joined our troop. His consolation was more or less, "Don't worry, commander, I will die with you." I had no desire to die and felt tempted to say something about his mother; I don't think I did. That day I felt cowardly.  

Our friends of the indomitable continent can be sure that, if need be, we will struggle no matter what the economic consequence of our actions may be. And if the fight is taken further still, we shall struggle to the last drop of our rebel blood to make this land a sovereign republic, with the true attributes of a nation that is happy, democratic, and fraternal with its brothers and sisters of Latin America.