Hero and War

When I was thirteen years old and I lived in Africa I was neighbour of the biggest Portuguese hero on the war wagged against Portugal. Mr. Daniel was/is his name. I recall the following true story: the men, the soldiers of Mr. Daniel they had the rifle «Mauser» and in that day, when I saw them into training, they used, for the first time, machine guns. Each soldier had a machine gun. It was the first training with machine guns and I was at their backs! Yes, at their backs. The place was a shooting range and the soldiers of Mister Daniel they were training one shoot each time with their machine guns. Mr. Daniel placed half the men at the ditch and mound of earth, of soil, and said to them: you!! down with your  heads!! And the other half of his men shot the others that were concealed at the ditch. What I saw when they came back it was they were shivering because the bullets threw soil on them and they were very scared!! And it was the turn of the other half! Finally there was training with bursts of shoots. And it happened the principal cause of this story: the men they were side by side and one man got the machine gun «under» his arm and I saw its burst almost kill the other men because the machine gun has a violent kick and, without support against the shoulder, it turned under the arm with the burst!! Mister Daniel beat him! I observed.