It is certainly a particular title, the one I chose, but certainly less vulgar and free from the risk of having to pay royalties, than , which is already the title of a book. However, the underlying concept is the same.
Coming immediately "to the point" without too many words, the reason for my writing is intolerance to hypocrisies, a truly deplorable phenomenon that becomes even more petty when it concerns the memory of someone who no longer exists.
In this case the hypocrisy that I denounce is that of seeing ceremonies of unveiling plaques, memorial stones and memorial stones to the memory of the sacrifice of some fallen, when in reality they do not give a damn to anyone but a family member or a companion of the fallen same.
Strong words, mine, but confirmed by tangible evidence.
I could quote for example an e-mail I received when I was president of the now dissolved Association for the Protection of National Aeronautical Heritage.
In that case, in response to my research on the exceptional major pilot Riccardo Peracchi (research that produced a small collection of stories, cloned from several parts and still available on the internet in various sites that have had the "shrewdness" of cancel any reference to the origin of the document) I was told that your tombstone at the Verona cemetery was neglected and restored for many years at the expense of a single patron. I cannot know if this is true, nor do I have any reason to verify whether it is true that not even the local branch of the Arma Aeronautica Association wanted to occupy it. But I believe that it should not be the task of a "non-profit" association with limited resources to deal with those who have brought prestige to an armed force (as well as to an aviation company of international standing): these latter bodies have of resources such as to consider the economic commitment for such a restoration to be laughable, possibly leaving to the "non-profit" association the responsibility of keeping the situation under control and reporting any problems to those responsible.
I could also mention another "discovery from the Internet": a document that talks about the state of preservation of a war memorial of an airship of the Navy in the Pisan countryside. The document is dated and I hope that in the meantime the armed force has already done so (in which case I apologize in advance and I will be happy to deny it by publishing photos of the current state of conservation).
I must in fact consider the fact that the internet, the "social media" and e-mail are often the megaphone of certain subjects who are not serious and in search of protagonism, so I pray to want to take with the benefit of the doubt the two examples cited and I remain in waiting for certain proofs to be able to give immediate denial and to "put the lie" to those who provided wrong information.
To provide certain arguments in support of my indignation I can do nothing but write more certain things than those of which I can personally provide evidence. I am sorry to even have to do it, because I would not want someone to think that I am exploiting an objective situation to imply and / or advance certain personal requests.
I want to clarify that I do not ask for anything (nor do I expect a consideration different from that which is almost nothing already received), but - I repeat - the only purpose for which I write the following is to be able to cite certain examples of demonstrations of lack of interest in memory of OWN fallen.
My family donated to the Air Force a war hero with an exemplary and highly decorated curriculum for war actions brought to its conclusion, putting his own life at risk. And so far nothing striking: there are many families like these in Italy.
However, there are some that are LESS than the hero ALSO produced a fallen one.
I would like to add, to highlight the thing, that the fallen in question was not just a family member, but was even the brother of that same hero, even before he was a pilot officer.
Dying at 24 years in a war mission or accident at the controls of your aircraft can perhaps make you think of two different levels of importance of the sacrifice of your life, resulting in a different level of attention to the memory of the fallen.
But if it had not been for that incident, perhaps even this young officer would have had to take part in warlike actions similar to those in which his brother stood out, and death could have grasped him more heroically than a "simple" plane crash.
A comparison with what I mean (maybe it's not the best one, but it's something that we all certainly still fresh in memory) could be the accident of the two Tornado of the 6 ° Stormo last year. In this very serious accident, in fact, the Air Force lost officers in a plane crash (not in the war actions in which these soldiers participated), and a monument was rightly erected at the scene of the accident.
Even in the case of my uncle the armed force had erected a commemorative stone at the crash site, and as long as his classmates had an age to allow it (and an executive role within the Italian Air Force) their memory was never lacking.
It is absolutely understandable that with the passing of the years, which in the meantime have become decades and the age of the components of this "second family" such as to make them leave the Armed Forces, the "official" memory has been reduced to also to remove the possibility of celebrating it. All normal and understandable.
But it is equally normal and understandable that the "blooded" family members of the fallen see in that stone a point where they meet annually to remember their brother. And the memory then extended to other deep details, such as the suffering suffered, for that loss, by their parents, the drama of the young girlfriend he saw in that officer, the hope of a future and a different life.
And in the "banality" of this private meeting there was also an implicit thanks to the armed force that had wanted to remember in the stone the sacrifice of its own officer.
All this (and much more) pushed these brothers and sisters of the fallen to go from time to time to hundreds of kilometers from their residences to reach a place comparable to a meadow surrounded by stony ground, in front of a piece of marble not too different from a Kerbstone of an old highway.
One day, during one of these moments of private commemoration, we found ourselves facing the bitter discovery that instead of the memorial stone and the lawn that housed it there was a cultivated field, which had become just as private (between 'other currently on sale despite the presence of at least part of the land - the one on which the stone was erected - belonging to the military domain, therefore inalienable).
My father already 3 lustres ago, and at a very advanced age he made complaints to all the competent organs, including the armed proprietary of the cippus, but he died with the disappointment of having led a war to Don Quixote.
In fact the only evidence of real interest in the problem, came from the municipality of the place where the aforementioned stone stood, from the carabinieri who carried out the investigations and from the supervision of the fine arts. Never from the Air Force.
Obviously, if the question does not concern who owns it, even after a complaint, it is very difficult to get something beyond the answers above.
But the thing that most offends is the lack of response of those who have ordered the life of a young man from 24 years and benefited from the professionalism, dedication and courage of his brother. The other Bodies had not responded, the offense would not have been so great.
It could be argued that probably the form chosen to report the fact may not have been the one most in line with the bureaucratic requirements. But then why did all the other bodies contacted (in the same form) respond?
I informally dusted off the matter last year, after my father's death, with the hope that at least the last surviving sister of the fallen could honor his memory in the octogenarian of the plane crash. And I have chosen a way that does not give rise to the suspicion of attempting preferential lanes involving people friends of mine within the armed force, nor much less going to open controversy, considering myself the first that the failure to respond to my complaint Dad could have been caused by a trivial accident.
But even this time the new lack of response of the armed force remains a disappointment.
The only indication of interest still seems to come from the local civil authorities (fortunately I cannot define policies because the municipality is governed by a civic list). But I wonder if anyone else is also awaiting the passing of my aunt to a better life, with the hope that this hassle ends.
In the case, I would like to point out that my aunt is not the only person in the family to keep to that stone for the memories it arouses. I, for example, remember well when as a young boy with my brother, my dad and my other uncles we had made with stones a large white cross, clearly visible on the surrounding grass and having the memorial in the center, to notify the other pilots landing at the nearby Grottaglie airport, where a young colleague of his had been immolated. The photos prove it.
And I also remember well when going to the chapel of the Aeronautical Academy and reading the name of my uncle on the memorial to the fallen, I remembered that cross. The same is true when I tackled certain "very particular" situations in flight, I thought of him on his last flight ...
I do not know how long I will still live (at this rate, with my writings I believe little), but the current territorial situation allows an easy restoration of the cippus (the municipality has expropriated a diagonal sector of the ex-meadow years ago to create a road , and the stone could now be rebuilt on the roadside, practically in the exact place where it originally stood), and if the authorizations come from the municipality, I am ready to restore the stone from my pocket.
After all, I realized that for others it is worth less than a curbstone. And then I'm starting to attend Puglia (where the site in question is) more assiduously, listening to the songs of Ligabue, in particular one from the title "the fields in April". What do these last two details have to do with this letter?
The reference to Puglia is linked to the fact that the current mayor of San Giorgio Jonico seems to have taken the matter to heart, while for the reference to the "La Liga", as I will show in a few lines, his words suggest some affinities with the case , in a modern tone and such as to soften the initial tone of this letter.
I think that if instead of quoting a contemporary rock singer and his songs, I quoted "I Sepolcri" by Foscolo, I would have exposed myself to less criticism on the seriousness and credibility of what I wrote.
But I also believe that to make it clear that times have changed, but certain values are still current, it may also be good to mention one who knows how to speak in a modern effective way. Besides, my father first, and I later, with formal language and "in pinstripes" we could not make ourselves understood.
However, the first affinity is that on the cover of the song I mentioned there is a drawing of a memorial stone in a meadow. A real stone, like the one that the song about a boy from 20 talks about, dead for Italy ...
Will he perhaps remember that there is a substantial difference between a memorial stone and a curbstone?
Luciano Ligabue at his "Campo Volo" (his maxi concert-event of which all the media have spoken, from the name chosen for the connection between the hard land and the dream of flying, which he suggests) sang that song in front of 150000 fans, while my writings on this title totaled only a few thousand readers.
So, without detaching myself too ideally from that record with the cippus cover on the lawn, I close by saying that "[...] a match streaked in the dark sheds more light than we see1".
This letter is that match.
In memory of my uncles (those who fell at the controls of a military plane, those decorated in war and those who simply cried the loss of a brother), of my father and his battle (now mine) against the windmills, in 81 occasiona recurrence of the flight incident in which the ten died pilot Tommaso Troncone.
Note
1) Ligabue "The wall of sound"
