Salvadoran army soldiers listen to a United States Army instructor during a parachute training exercise overseen by U.S. Army Rangers and Special Forces at the Ilopango air base in San Salvador, El Salvador, January 1, 1982. With the escalation of U.S. military aid in 1981, 55 military advisors, or the Mobile Training Team, MTT, arrived in El Salvador and were stationed at bases around the country. The advisors were prohibited from engaging in combat missions with Salvadoran troops and from carrying weapons other than a sidearm. However, regulations on the capacities and number of advisors stationed were largely ignored or circumvented by the Reagan administration.
Salvadoran army soldiers listen to a United States Army instructor during a parachute training exercise overseen by U.S. Army Rangers and Special Forces at the Ilopango air base in San Salvador, El Salvador, January 1, 1982. With the escalation of U.S. military aid in 1981, 55 military advisors, or the Mobile Training Team, MTT, arrived in El Salvador and were stationed at bases around the country. Referred to as "trainers" to discourage comparisons with U.S. advisors during the Vietnam War, the trainers in El Salvador worked to strengthen the military capacity of the Salvadoran Armed Forces as well as enforce the preferred military strategy of the war's largest funder, the United States government.
Salvadoran army recruits perform exercises during a parachute training class overseen by United States Army Rangers and Special Forces at the Ilopango air base in San Salvador, El Salvador, January 1, 1982. The base was favored by the U.S. military operating in the region as a headquarters for covert activities. Among the operations carried out were C.I.A.-sponsored supply flights to the Nicaraguan contras.
Salvadoran General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova walks to the Federal Courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA, October 19, 2000. Vides Casanova was head of the Salvadoran National Guard between 1979 and 1983. After a 15-year legal battle, he was found guilty in the United States by his command responsibility over Salvadoran security forces for acts of torture and extrajudicial killings, including the brutal slaying of four U.S. nuns in 1980. On April 8, 2015, U.S. immigration officials deported Vides Casanova to El Salvador from the United States, where he had resided as a legal permanent resident since 1989.