"Don't Hit My Face"

A thin-faced man in dusty clothes stood last week in a courtyard near Vera Cruz. He blinked nervously before a group of photographers and then turned to a file of brown-skinned soldiers.

"At this solemn moment," said he, "I wish to be an example for the army. I die tranquilly, with the knowledge that I did what I believed to be my duty, but I counsel all not to follow my course. Now boys, shoot here" -he held his hand over his heart -"don't hit my face."

Rifles cracked. A moment later the rebel General Jesus M. Aguirre, who captured and later fled from Vera Cruz (TIME, March 18), lay on the ground, bleeding slightly from the mouth. The photographers, who were there by order of President Portes Gil, took more pictures to prove that the execution had really occurred.

A few hours later, in Chester, Pa., kind-hearted Brigadier General Charles Eliot Hyatt of the Pennsylvania Military College, summoned General Jesus's. 15-year-old son, Cadet Leon Aguirre, to his private office. He told the boy that his father had just been executed, as had his uncle, Gen. Manuel Aguirre, the week before.

"My boy," said the General, almost as affected as the white-faced cadet before him, "you must be a good soldier, a husband to your mother, and a father to your sister."

"Yes, sir," said Cadet Aguirre, saluting. Mess call sounded, and Cadet Aguirre marched with his platoon into the dining room. Other cadets gazed round-eyed over their beef stew and cocoa at a classmate whose father had actually died in the profession for which they were training.