Moncada: The Birth of a Revolution

by David Soto Jr.

On December 2, 1956, a yacht named the Granma carrying, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che Guevara, and 79 other comrades landed in Playa Las Coloradas, Oriente Province, Cuba. Two years later, having successfuly overthrown Batista, these men would march into the country's capital and claim it in the name of the revolution. Most people would assume that the landing on the Granma marks the beginning of the revolution, but the name of Fidel Castro's organization, El Movimiento 26 de Julio, is enough to disprove this. On July 26th, 1953, Fidel led a group of over 120 rebels in an attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Even though the attack was a complete and utter failure, it elevated the twenty-six-year-old, Fidel Castro, to international fame as a political leader and of course, the eventual president of Cuba, a position he held until he retired at the age of eighty-two.

But this is not a story of Fidel Castro; this is a story of our beloved Pierre Bernal de los Campos who was there in the middle of the July 26th attack.

After renouncing violence, Pierre finds himself in Cuba where he continues to partake in other vices, namely drinking. Almost by accident, Pierre picks up a job as a bouncer at a dingy bar in Havana. It is here that he meets, Adela Corazón, the sister of Joél Santamaría, a member of Fidel's command staff for the "Movement." Joél learns of Pierre's history as a soldier and finds that his experience could be of use.

After a personal request from Fidel, Pierre agrees to train the rebels but only as long as he's not required to take part in any of the fighting. As the tension of the pending attack builds, Pierre's mantra is "this is none of my concern." But it becomes his concern when Adela, who has a personal vendetta against the Batista regime, can't help but get involved in the attack on the Moncada barracks.

Unknown Binding

About the author

David is a retired U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant who didn't realize until reaching his forties that he was a writer. As a child, he struggled with learning disabilities which yielded him grades that barely earned him his high school diploma. With marks like that, the thought of being an author never occurred to him. Also, college was out of the question. He joined the military and retired 23 years later. The same week David took off the uniform for the last time, never to put it back on, he hit the road traveling the U.S. in his van.

David penned several fitness and nutrition article and books, but after listening to On Writing by Stephen King, he decided to give writing fiction a try. He started out with a novel about an Air Force Sergeant who's PTSD caused him to do terrible things in his sleep. This project was for practice as well as fun, and he published a chapter every week on his website www.DavidSotoWrites.com. After several months, this project came to an abrupt halt.

One of Stephen Kings' pieces of advice was to become a voracious reader of fiction. David became obsessed with reading novels and became reacquainted with his favorite genre, magical realism. One evening while reading, he could not get out of his head the vision of a beautiful woman who sold magical chocolates to people who needed to rekindle the fire in their love life. That was the birth of Los Chocolates de Esperanza Diamanté and the series of books that followed.