Lieutenant Luis Gonzalo Segura in the video launch of his book. Photo from Facebook page “Un paso al frente” Luis Gonzalo Segura, a lieutenant in the Spanish Army with almost 12 years of service, was fed up with seeing all sorts of corruption within the higher command. The issue is one few Spaniards know about, so he wrote a novel titled “Un paso al frente” (A step forward), a work of fiction based on the alleged abuses that takes place in the armed forces. In the media tour that followed the novel's publication, Segura was outspoken against the armed forces, leading to his arrest for publicly criticizing military authorities. He was sentenced to two months in a military prison and faces possible expulsion from the army. Segura explained the military's culture of communication in an interview published on online magazine La Marea: Desde que se suprime el servicio militar hay un corte de flujo de información desde el mundo militar al exterior. […] Al no tener libertad de expresión los militares, ese flujo todavía se corta de forma más radical, de tal forma que al final, a día de hoy, las fuerzas armadas son un estado paralelo y completamente estanco a resto de la sociedad. As long as the military is suppressed, the lack of communication between the military and the outside world will exist. […] Without freedom of speech, the military's non-existent communication is even more drastic, leading to the army's present parallel status, one that is completely disconnected from the rest of society. The cover of the book's 6th edition. Photo from Facebook page “Un paso al frente” In 2010, Segura was assigned a task involving the inventory of information technology, during which he found, in his own words, “a discrepancy of about 25-35%,” that totaled “millions of euros.” The young serviceman attempted to report the situation to military authorities, but the judge and the attorney closed the case without reviewing the information on the hard disc that Segura had presented to the court. According to news website vozpópuli, Segura “in his book alludes to alleged embezzlement, prevarication, negligence, false secondments, meal and petrol fraud, sale of data, summer homes, golf memberships, spas and VIP rooms.” So many indulgences have left the army in a serious economic crisis, Segura said during the launch of his book in the city of Huesca: Los datos económicos de la institución militar que, según afirma, tiene una deuda de 29.000 millones de euros y destina el 77% de sus 6.000 millones de presupuesto anual a personal, evidencian, por otra parte, que el Ejército es “un modelo anticuado y obsoleto, e insostenible a nivel económico”. The military's economic data that according to Segura is 29,000 million euros in debt and allocates 77 percent of its annual 6-billion-euro budget to personnel, is evidence furthermore that the army is “an antiquated and obsolete model, and not sustainable at an economic level.” Segura explained the alleged misuse of funds and bloated hierarchy to Barrio Canino, an interview program on Ágora Sol Radio, a broadcast platform associated with the 15M protest movement in Spain: Hay un excedente de mandos enorme. De hecho, ahora mismo uno de los problemas que tenemos es que hay 42 000 soldados, a los que se les trata como a perros, y con contratos basura […] y tenemos 52 000 mandos […] cualquiera que tenga dos dedos de frente se da cuenta de que esto es insostenible. There is an enormous surplus of commanders. As a matter of fact, one of our current problems is that there are 42,000 soldiers, all who are treated like dirt, and have contracts that are rubbish […] and we have 52,000 commanders […] anyone in their right mind would know that this is not sustainable. He elaborated for news website Periodista Digital: Lamentablemente en España muchos cargos son heredados en el ejército. Tenemos 270 generales y con veinte sería suficiente; tenemos 1050 coroneles y con 50 sería suficiente. Esto evidencia el excedente de oficiales como ejemplo de cómo la cúpula militar se mueve buscando su propio interés. Unfortunately, in the Spanish army many positions are inherited. We have 270 generals, 20 would be sufficient; we have 1,050 colonels and 50 would be sufficient. This evidence of surplus officials is a perfect example of how the military leaders looks out for their own interest. The lieutenant blames the army's corruption on the impunity that exists within the institution, which lacks organizational separation between its judges, law enforcement and financial authorities. The army's lack of will to change doesn't help either, he says: […] ha habido una especie de pacto entre los dirigentes de la sociedad civil y los del mundo militar por el que nadie se quería meter en el terreno de nadie.