We were living in Mexico when the Falklands/Malvinas war happened. Like most of our friends at the time, we rooted for the Latin American country versus England and its vestige of colonialism. We rooted against Margret Thatcher in particular. Like most of our friends, we were ignorant of the history of the islands and Argentine politics. As far as attractions go, visiting the islands not high on my list of things to do, although it did (barely) beat out going to the dentist.
Compared to Ushuaia, Stanley (the capital of the Falklands) is 
a simple English fishing village. The 778 islands which make up the archipelago have a population of about 3,000 people, most of whom live in Stanley. The town is well ordered, comprised of modest homes complete with English gardens and small utilitarian greenhouses. Despite the influx of tourism, life seems go on as normal.
The Falklands has ready access to a wide diversity of birdlife with over 220 different species, including five different types of penguins. Unfortunately, we did not take a tour to visit the penguins. We had thought that the penguin season was pretty much over, based on the reports of other passengers on earlier excursions. This was definitely not the case in the Falklands, where a mere two and a half hour trip on with a four wheel drive vehicle on track that was generously called a road led to a colony of thousands of penguins. I am kicking myself, something that I have had a lot of practice doing over the years.
The English essence of Stanley was reflected in its cemetery, with its well maintained graves with neat headstones, often inscribed with sentimental verses. The flowers were encased in glass bowls, both to preserve the offerings from the weather and the fat geese that had taken up residence in the graveyard. Like most English villages, there was a memorial to the men lost in the Great War and another to those lost in World War II. It seems to me that their participation in the Wars was important to the people of the Falklands, as if they were paying their dues to belong to England.
The largest memorial was to those that died in 1982. The Stanley Museum, which has a very nice collection of 19th century materials showing how closely the Falklands is linked culturally and historically to England, provided a timeline to the conflict between England and Argentina. It appears that England was trying to cede sovereignty for at least twenty years before the war. They had offered various deals, such as ceding the islands to Argentina and leasing them back to the islanders. Argentina’s gestures included surreptitious flights that landed on the Stanley golf course, planting the Argentine Flag and then flying off. The only stumbling block to the diplomatic 
efforts and the grand gestures turned out to be the Falkland people, who resisted being given to Argentina.
Unfortunately in the 1970s and 80s, Argentina was under the control of the military, who had thoroughly screwed up the economy in addition to kidnapping and murdering students, pregnant women, intellectuals, and labor leaders. To take the public’s mind off their failures, the military decided to that a patriotic war was just the ticket, so they launched an invasion to reclaim the Malvinas, complete with tanks, warships, fighters, mine fields, and artillery. Just as 
unfortunately, the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher was in charge and a small but blood war was on.
The museum tells the story of the actual war through the voices of those who were children during the conflict. It was well done because it was not a paean to Britain or an appeal to patriotism, but rather a story of shock and terror seen through the eyes of children. Perhaps all wars should be told by the children who had to suffer through them.
The memory of the Falklands that will stay with me the longest, however, is that of the quality of the air, which was so clear and clean like air before the invention of civilization. That and the memory of the missed penguins.
