Reddit reviews The Falklands War

> Now, here is the most shocking fact: the average argentine soldier was 19 years old with no professional training. It's hard to find a source in english, so this is the only one. Read the first paragraph of page 69 "portraits of a soldier".[3] This is portrayed very well in an argentine film called "Iluminados por el Fuego". The military (dictatorship) didn't have enough soldiers to fight the UK, so they took boys from 18 to 21 years old, gave them a frew months of training, and off you go.

It's probably worth saying in relation to that that they didn't totally expect to have to fight to keep the Falklands, the initial plan was that their Marines and Special Forces would invade and the Army would briefly occupy the islands and then be withdrawn (whilst making sure the British wouldn't be able to reoccupy the islands) whilst they negotiated at the UN for a transfer of Sovereignty.

The escalation to a full occupation happened fairly organically over the months of planning, and by the time they realised how committed they were it was too late to do a great deal about it. Martin Middlebrook's 'The Argentine Fight for the Falklands' and ['The Falklands War'] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falklands-War-Martin-Middlebrook-ebook/dp/B0094JTQE4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=) are both excellent accounts if you want to know a bit more.