Napoleón Herson Calitto

Colonel Herson Calitto Arbaiza (14 December 1941 &mdash; 23 October 1984) was a distinguished commanding officer in the Salvadoran Army during the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s.

He was born Napoleon Herson Calitto Arbaiza in San Salvador on 14 December 1941. Calitto graduated in 1963, together with Colonel Domingo Monterrosa Barrios in the utmost elite military academy in El Salvador, Academia Militar Gerardo Barrios. He had a distinguished career and reputation during the civil war in El Salvador. On the 13 of November 1964 he became a lieutenant, his first combat assignment was as a gunman in the 2nd artillery brigade during the 1969 war against Honduras, which is also known as the "Soccer War" due to immigration problems between the two countries. He became a Lieutenant Colonel on 31 of July 1981.

Calitto and Monterrosa were seen as number ones in their class because of their superb leadership and combat skills. After graduating from the military academy, Calitto went on to take military classes from American soldiers in Panama, and later went on to Taiwan to study anti-communist insurgency tactics. Soon after his return to El Salvador in December 1981, Calitto was assigned to become the founder Commander of the elite "Atonal" Battalion, an immediate reaction battalion in the department of Usulután, where he trained what was considered one of the best military groups in El Salvador.

Calitto Arbaiza married Juanita Flores and had two sons, Herson Napoleon Calitto Jr and Ronnie Stanley Calitto. Herson Calitto Jr joined the Salvadorean army in 1983 and died in combat on 19 February 1984, when the helicopter he was traveling in was brought down by guerrilla forces. Ronnie Calitto joined the United Nations and served with the Department of Peace Keeping Operations in Liberia (UNMIL) and Sudan (UNMIS); and later he joined the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan as Humanitarian Affairs and Civil-Military Coordination Officer.

In May 1984 Colonel Calitto was made commander of the Commander and Instruction center of the Salvadorean Army, the position he held until the time of his death on 23 October 1984. Ironically, as his son, Colonel Calitto was killed while traveling in a helicopter after a FMLN bomb went off while he was on flight. The remnants of his helicopter can be found in El Museo de la Revolucion in Perquín, Morazán.

Calitto also had a daughter out of wedlock in October 1967 with Leonor Herrera, and also married Frida Larreynaga in December 1975 and had another daughter.

In 1985, the city of Usulatan named one of their main streets after him and raised a monument commemorating his life.