The operation was risky and dangerous since the Spanish soldiers were very poorly trained and scared of the Rifians. Silvestre's force comprised 20,000 Spanish soldiers, as well as 5,000 regulares, as Moroccans in the Spanish Army were called. Of the Spanish troops, well over half were completely illiterate conscripts from the poorest elements of Spanish society and had been sent to Morocco with minimal training. Despite Silvestre's assurances that his equipment was sufficient to defeat the Rifians, about three quarters of the rifles at the Melilla arsenal were in shoddy condition because of poor maintenance, and a report from late 1920, which Silvestre had never bothered to read, warned that many of the rifles in Melilla arsenal were unusable or more of a danger to the soldier who was firing them than to the enemy. The average Spanish soldier in Morocco in 1921 was paid the equivalent of US$0.34 per day and lived on a simple diet of coffee, bread, beans, rice and the odd piece of meat. Many soldiers bartered their rifles and ammunition at the local markets in exchange for fresh vegetables. The barracks that the soldiers lived in were unsanitary, and medical care at the few hospitals was very poor. Up in the mountains, Spanish soldiers lived in small outposts known as blocaos, which the American historian Stanley Payne observed: Many of these lacked any sort of toilet, and the soldier who ventured out of the filthy bunker risked exposure to the fire of lurking tribesmen. Continuing a practice first began in Cuba, corruption flourished in the venal Spanish officer corps, with goods meant for the troops being sold onto the black market, and the funds intended to build road and railroads in Morocco ended up in the pockets of senior officers. A shockingly high number of Spanish officers could not read maps, which explains why Spanish units so frequently got lost in the Rif. In general, studying war was not considered to be a good use of an officer's time, and most officers devoted their time in Melilla in words of the American journalist James Perry to gambling and whoring, sometimes molesting the native Moorish women. Morale in the army was extremely poor, and most Spanish soldiers just wanted to go home and leave Morocco forever. Because of the prostitutes from Spain, who attached themselves in great number to the Spanish bases in Morocco, venereal diseases were rampant in the Spanish Army, as it was the great dream of many Spanish soldiers to contract a venereal disease so he could invalidated out of service and sent home to Spain. Silvestre was well aware of the poor morale of his soldiers, but he did not regard it as a problem since he believed that his enemy was so inferior that the problems afflicting his troops would not be an issue.