To fight the young

• To fight youth

Italian photographer Tommaso Rada (Tommaso Rada) shot thirteen-year veterans of the colonial war in Portugal, the main country of the conflict of the XX century.

In the early 1960s, Portugal, which in 1932 ruled the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, sent troops in its African colonies - Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. For 13 years, 149,000 conscripts were sent to Africa by mobilizing got all the men between the ages of 18 to 30 years. In 1974, four years after the death of Salazar, as a result of "Carnation Revolution" authoritarian regime "New State" has fallen, and hostilities ceased in the colonies. Thirteen-year conflict has become the largest and most tragic in the XX century for Portugal, which has maintained neutrality during the Second World War. Now Pyrenean country attain the age thousands of veterans suffering from old injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Veteran of the colonial war and his grandson at a meeting of the Association of Disabled armed forces.

lost both legs in Angola Senor Abilio dresses without the aid of his wife, insisting on its independence.

A veteran in front of his portrait, taken during the war.

Blinded by the explosion in Angola Senor Adele sits under a photograph of her sons.

Veteran looking for names of friends on the memorial wall at the Museum of the colonial war.

Prostheses lord of Fortune, who lost both arms in Guinea-Bissau.

Silverio Jorge Rodrigues shave. When he was in Guinea-Bissau, in his hands a bomb exploded.

Letters to the participants of the colonial war.

Senor Arlindo, a member of the war in Angola, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which has been recognized disease in Portugal until 1999. Arlindo divorced, his children avoid contact with him for the last 15 years.