I guess sometimes you can take a knife to a gun fight. When an El Salvadoran hero successfully helps his comrades even though he's reduced to fighting with his pocket knife, you know he's going to have a lot of credibility back home. It's inevitable that the entire episode is going to have a lot of play in El Salvador and probably the surrounding countries:
As reinforcements arrived to save Cpl. Toloza's unit, the two camps were under attack, with the Salvadorans and a small U.S. contingent of soldiers and civilian security personnel trying to protect the perimeter and retake an adjoining seven-story hospital captured by the insurgents.The Spaniards didn't fight and only after a long delay agreed to send armored vehicles to help evacuate the wounded. Col. Flores said he cannot question the Spanish decisions that day, but added that the Spaniards "could have helped us sooner."
U.S. troops have replaced the Spaniards. Salvadoran officers, many of whom were trained at military schools in the United States, say they're pleased to be working with the Americans.