The Cuban people stores in their hearts many anecdotes that show Che’s iron character in all its sense, that special man who congratulated people with the same strength in which he criticized them when it was needed.
During the days of the Sierra Maestra, his friends tried to protect him by reinforcing his diet due to his asthma attacks. However, he never accepted any privilege, he set aside such fact and always ate the same as the rest of his men.
Everyone knows about his daily attendance to the voluntary works. Stories in this sphere of his life are numerous as for example the occasions in which journalists or photographers tried to interview him or at least take a picture. Che would always say:” Look, the best thing you can do now is to begin working with us and we’ll analyze what you desire afterwards”.
It is also said that the young people of the Ministry of Industry made a call for a meeting to which the Commander answered energetically since he got astonished when he saw a few of the young organisers in the meeting. He stayed quiet still, but he applied some measures to have the majority of the young people the following Sunday. One morning, he had to go out early and when he asked about his driver, someone answered that as it was raining he had taken one of his sons to school. Che kept silence and when the man returned, he just said: “You should keep in mind that you aren’t the driver of Ernesto Guevara, but that of the Minister of Industry ”. He was very demanding when talking about the fulfilling of schedules. As an example, it would be excellent to bring back to memory a certain day in which he arranged a chess game with Jose Luis Barreras, a figure within the game. Barreras arrived at the date a few minutes after the hour indicated. After the greetings they talked about different themes and when his interlocutor asked him: When do we begin playing? He received a straight answer: “Listen, discipline is vital in life. We said at nine o’clock p.m and you arrived here minutes later, that’s why we won’t play today”.