November 4 has always represented an opportunity for civil society to give credit to the Armed Forces for their commitment to the defense and security of citizens. However, a few days ago the press gave wide prominence to a foretaste of the changing times that started from that high school in Venice which saw teachers and students compactly refuse an encounter with the world with the stars. Official motivation? Article 11 of the Constitution states: "Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offense to freedom, etc. etc.".
Given the imminence of the November 4, perhaps the world in uniform was expecting a timely reply or reflection from the institutional leaders, but neither the Supreme Commander of the FA, nor the Minister of Defense and even less that of the Public Education, of which moreover, sixty-eight convictions are known, they have replied to nothing.
It would have been enough to recall that the Constitution also states that the defense of the Fatherland is "a sacred duty of the citizen" and that "sovereignty belongs to the people".
Even if the military has made the call to the silences of the institutional leaders, for them it is not easy to digest the distraction or indifference with which the Fatherland (Minister Fioramonti forgive the recourse to this obsolete word of other times which generically indicates even the political class, the public opinion and the world of information) underestimate the military problems ... starting with the abnormal number of suicides recorded among men in uniform!
Why do the military commit suicide twice as much as the civilized world? Because a citizen who wore the uniform by free choice and after passing a psycho-aptitude selection decides to take his own life, as happened between the 1 last January and this 4 November at 16 carabinieri, 4 policemen, 7 military of the three forces armies, 10 prison officers, financiers 5, 5 traffic cops and 1 fireman?
It is evident that the malaise that spreads in the Armed Forces derives from the indifference of the political class towards the problems related to the stress to which the so-called "servants of the state" are subjected, from the economic difficulties connected with the missed family reunions to end up in the judicial vicissitudes suffered from the military by a judiciary that keeps them at gunpoint (if a subject who reports a physical damage during arrest, for the servant of the State there is the certainty of ending up on trial).
It is also fatal that family distance, synonymous with separation, entails risks that can lead to divorce.
As for the economic difficulties it is not easy for any of the 7000 soldiers engaged in the mission "safe roads" to be told that the 27 (twenty-seven) euros per day due during the six months of service performed by relying on mostly inadequate barracks, will come paid at the end of the six months and beyond! And yet those 27 euros would be convenient to "survive" away from home and to make occasional trips to see family and children (a problematic option, due to the cost of flights, for the Sardinians of the "Sassari" Brigade).
The political response to the needs of the military is known: lack of resources. Resources would be lacking, 400 million, it seems, also to meet the commitment of international missions.
Having said this, it is understandable that anyone in the military 7000 in question finds it hard to learn from the press that the Court of Auditors has certified that the daily cost for each clandestine (pardon: migrant) present in Italy amounts to 203 euro / day, equal to 6.090 euros per month. But at the Army VFP (which receives, if married, a salary oscillating around 1500 euro per month) it is not known how many hundreds of thousands of migrants are assisted in the national territory, or whether in the calculation of the Court of Auditors the cost of the over 500.000 STP cards that entitle any migrant to access national health care, and also the cost of 170 euro / day for each of the 20.000 non-Italian guests in our prisons. Not to mention the cost of charter flights with which we "go and get" migrants in Ethiopia as well as the flights with which Germany "brings us back" to Italy, it is not known in what capacity, 50 migrants per week. It follows that the State must spend a river of money for these priority needs, as for those equally important necessary for the income of citizenship bestowed alas (as reported by the media and declared by the governor of Campania De Luca) also to the numerous laborers of the Camorra and to the pusher even if Porsche owners Tiger.
This overall picture contributes not a little to depress the morale of those engaged in the "Safe Roads" mission, already mortified by an unexciting role that excludes the possibility of proceeding to an arrest even in fragrance crime. In such circumstances the soldier must limit himself to alerting, most of the time in vain, the operations center of the police, whether he is a witness of a drug dealing activity, or that he discovers an abusive landfill, or attends the spectacle of a migrant intent on defecating on a street in the center of the capital. Watching and reporting tasks that could be fulfilled, without detracting from the deterrent value due to the presence of a uniform, even from a good camera or from a pensioner facing a window facing the street.
Even in the event of aggression, the military must confine himself to a defense "proportionate to the offense", while to threats and verbal offenses he must not react but ... alert the power plant. This is also not easy to swallow for a soldier who has more missions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In summary: a hypothetical still image of this November 4 allows us to glimpse a man in disappointed and dissatisfied uniform who sees a future with faded colors and a progressive decline of the Armed Forces.
As is now clear, these do not represent a priority for the political class, and so it will be until one is aware that if in the international scenario Italy counts for less than it should, much is due to the lack of credible Armed Forces.
And to improve this picture for nothing exhilarating the usual pistolotti of circumstance will be of little use, proposed with icy smiles and seasoned with words of circumstance praising Europe before Italy.
Photo: Italian Army
