Francisco Madariaga Quintela never wants to hear the name Alejandro Ramiro Gallo again. That's the name he was known by for the past 32 years. It took that long for him to realize that it was not just the name he grew up with that wasn't right, but his whole existence.

“They were very dark years. I lived like a ghost. It was very strange to see that your own family didn't allow you to progress and didn't support you in anything. There was no resemblance with my siblings.”

Madariaga Quintela is the 101st person to be identified by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, a group of women who have spent much of the past 27 years trying to locate the children of victims of Argentina's Dirty War who were taken by military operatives and either put up for adoption or sent to orphanages.

Francisco was one of them. But this past month, his life of anguish and despair took a dramatic turn. In an emotional encounter, he was finally reunited with his real father, Abel Madariaga.

In March of 1976, a military coup brought terror to the Argentine population in what came to be known as the Dirty War. Famous are the death flights, in which prisoners were taken in small aircraft or helicopters, dumped in the water and left to drown. Just as infamous are the disappearances of thousands of political opponents.

Reports by human-rights groups indicate that there were approximately 365 concentration camps in which those suspected of being leftist were held and tortured. They either disappeared or were tried without due process. It is estimated that some 30,000 were killed. The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo say that around 400 children were taken from the women who were kidnapped and killed.

Silvia Quintela was abducted in January 1977. She was 28 years old and four months pregnant. She and her husband were militants of the leftist group Los Montoneros. When she gave birth to a baby boy, he was taken by Alejandro Gallo, an intelligence officer with the Argentine army, who raised him as his own with his wife Susana Colombo. Abel Madariaga never saw his wife Silvia again, and went into exile.

The elder Madariaga returned to his country at the end of the military dictatorship and joined the group Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo. He spent much of his time helping them find children and grandchildren of the disappeared, always hoping to find that little boy he and his wife had planned to name Francisco.

In the meantime, the young man who had grown up as Alejandro Gallo began a desperate search for his true identity. He claims to have suspected for some time that he might be the child of a victim of the Dirty War. He confronted his adopted mother, now divorced from the army officer, who confessed to him that he actually was not their son. He had been brought home by Gallo at birth, with his umbilical cord still attached.

Together they approached the Grandmothers group, took the necessary DNA testing, and shortly after, it was confirmed that he was in fact the son of Abel Madariaga and Silvia Quintela.

Father and son both describe the moment they met as a life-changing experience. “It was like finding something of yours, of which you had been deprived during 32 years,” said Francisco.

His father has instilled in his memory the moment in which his son walked through the door. “We recognized each other totally. Hugging him for that first time, it was as if I filled a hole in my soul,” he said.

The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, named after the place where they have gathered for years along with the mothers of the disappeared to protest and demand that their loved ones be returned, will not give up until they find all the children who were taken. And they will not stop until those responsible are brought to justice. The reunification of Francisco and his biological father was a bittersweet moment. It reminded Argentineans of one of the darkest eras of their history.

But for father and son, it is like being born again. “Never again,” said Francisco, will he use the name Alejandro Gallo. “To have your identity is the most beautiful thing there is.”

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(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www .mariaesalinas.com)

© 2010 by Maria Elena Salinas

Distributed by King Features Syndicate