A slightly different way to commemorate the centenary of 1918: the memories of compulsory conscription!

(To Gianluca Celentano)
30/10/18

Combining the memories of the barracks with the activities we carried out during the military service period, perhaps as drivers in a motor vehicle office, is undoubtedly a suggestive page of the last century that brings to life in each of us indelible memories of military service.

It is also a "due act", a tribute to those glorious pages of history of our Armed Forces who are preparing to celebrate the Centenary of the First World War, a conflict that saw us winners thanks to the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of soldiers coming from all the regions of Italy.

We will describe here only a part of the healthy and understandable frenzy of the twenty-year-old boys under arms, who after a day in the barracks, dreamed of the free exit of the 18, noting one day less than military.

First aversion and then nostalgia, but they would do it again

The reality that I will describe refers to the 80 / 90 Army, which I experienced and which the director Marco Risi wanted to recreate with the film, "Soldiers 365 at dawn" (opening image). I am therefore a witness, as a former volunteer, and with the most recent recalls, of the drastic change suffered by the FF.AA, based on a new professional and formal methodology, but also on a relationship with superiors that is different and above all more practical and collaborative.

By documenting and listening to the experiences of older people, it is clear that military service has undergone several changes more or less every decade.

Try to imagine the military service in the post-war period or, perhaps, in the 60 years, where, in addition to uniforms and treatment, the relationship with the superiors changed. Superiors who once could turn to us with the "TU" linked to supremacy rather than collaboration, or return with thought to our "metallic locker" which, initially, was the characteristic fabric suitcase bag with the internal structure to be composed to give it the shape of a parallelepiped to hang neatly behind a cot: a bed without springs and a cloth.

I have met many groups and hundreds of boys. I still remember them fondly. Even if the military experience was experienced more as an imposition - even if at the service of the country - and if for some of them I could argue that it was traumatic to get used to the rules of the barracks, the melancholy struck everyone after the unofficial evening "march with leave" which marked, the next day, an awakening as civilians.

He plays the ration and then the gathering

The canteen was already operational at eleven, but only for the guards and service personnel; for all the others, the characteristic signal of RANCIO was expected at noon, which established the cessation of activities for thousands of young people serving in battalions and regiments. Officers and non-commissioned officers headed into their circles while conscripts lined up to access the longed-for meal.

Someone was assigned charges or "special services" to pass in front of the queue but in reality the canteen flow was very fast and strictly within the scheduled time frame.

In the employment departments and in the vehicle offices, work never stopped and, when ordinary maintenance or out-of-barracks services were not required, lists of vehicles to be sold or inventories were drawn up for the supply of the most common spare parts of battalion.

It was about an hour and a half the time available for lunch and relaxation in the dormitories. Someone will remember the vain attempts to rest in camouflage keeping the legs stretched over the structure of the cot and the head resting on the wool mattresses folded into a cube to be arranged with extreme precision before the afternoon gathering; the officer on duty in the company was often inflexible (even if he was conscripted) and perhaps a little "too convinced", but at stake was the free evening exit ...

The afternoon was perhaps the heaviest to face but the unmistakable sound of the Gathering made us spring from our drowsiness making us gather in Piazza d'Armi framed in order of height and rest, waiting for the superiors to put us at attention to notify us of the afternoon deliveries.

Work in the departments

In the more formal departments, one took leave of the frame one in a row to the other and with the highest one able to guide the team to the warehouse or office of employment.

Often there was an apparent flat calm. Once a month the warehouse and the dorms were completely cleaned and ordered up. The "soaps", the buckets of water with dissolved inside the military soap, happened a little 'to all.

Someone was able to give a second - harmless - life to the shells of the Nato 7,62, skillfully turning them into lighters.

In the department workshops the level of mechanical intervention on the vehicles had limits in the activities, while in the logistic departments of "Manovra" there was carte blanche for all types of repairs. I remember the registration of the carburetion of the AR76 petrol or the replacement of the cruises, one of the sore points of the Campagnola, but also the change of the belts and the reclined cabs of the ACM80 for the interventions of filter replacement or registration of the linkages.

The most demanding vehicles like maintenance, ATC 81, Astra BM just to name a few, were transferred to the Manovra departments, equipped as real Iveco service centers. But the vehicle offices had to program the vehicles on the strength of the ward very early, even months, and the capacity of its manager, a marshal, was to foresee possible inconveniences before the intended use, situations that always required at least two alternative solutions ... Italic ingenuity in this respect was unique and enviable!

For each degree a means

A custom that, in some ways, has vanished was the assignment of particular classes of cars to officers. If the small cars were available with the conductor to transport the company commanders, the larger sedans were assigned to the battalion and regiment commanders who used a fixed conscript as a driver; maybe the latter could be a little privileged compared to other soldiers but his assignment, on the other hand, established a much more demanding time flexibility and above all an impeccable formality.

The successful Fiat 124, 128, Ritmo and Uno followed successively by the Fiat Tipo, were the utilitarian averages at the battalion level, to use internal terminology, that is to say those vehicles for the main use of the commander of the department, generally a lieutenant colonel.

The AR76, with clear operational characteristics, was used indiscriminately by the whole department hierarchy. We will remember the images of the general Angioni, that I had for other the pleasure to know, when in Beirut released a long video interview with the journalist Enzo Biagi while he was driving a Campagnola painted white for the mission Italcon.

However, for representation and in non-operational contexts, generals based on their category could have in strictly ministerial blue livery, Alfasud or Alfa 33 rather than Fiat Ritmo, Bravo, Brava and Croma with petrol engines.

The army corps generals, for clearly more institutional tasks and relationships, were often subjected to the Italian flagships of the period, such as the Fiat 130 and 131 or the Alfetta, but if they had command tasks the "three and four stars" cars were often the Alfa 164, Fiat Croma or maybe the Alfa 90 or the Lancia Thema that in some cases could be shiny white or even armored and driven by a carabiniere.

Shortly after the '90, the automotive market for institutions suffered as we know the liberalization of the market, which although questionable in many ways, led to a clear and gradual improvement on the quality, finish and costs of the Italian automotive.

Foreign and leasing

Today it is not difficult to meet a senior officer on board a shiny green Fiat Panda (also excellent car) perhaps led by him for some service or training outside the ward.

It is an aspect that goes hand in hand with the professionalization of the FF.AA where, hierarchy apart, the results count more than the form, perhaps too short-sighted. In the US Army, for example, this has always happened.

In strictly formal circumstances, however, the vehicle assignment methodology seems to have remained the previous one, but the car brands are changing. The Audi A4, A5 and A6 would seem to be the most popular, in a clearly ministerial version and perhaps metallic gray. Used for the movements of the vertices of the Armed Forces, they are not necessarily guided by a carabiniere, but also by a graduate in SPE of Navy Army or Air Force, which has passed several selections and courses. Or at least it should be.

Some of these cars belong to leasing companies chosen by the Defense, at their expense, as with a normal car rental, the costs of insurance and maintenance but also the replacement of the vehicle with more recent models fall. We do not have clear data and the barrel downloads on the subject are different ... however a certain amount of these super flagships would seem to be publicly owned.

End of activity and free exit

For those who did not have a permit from 17pm to midnight, the free exit was at 18pm and, if it got dark early, dropping the flag was a mandatory rite before leaving the barracks, where people were formally on the alert in plain clothes.

Arrived in the dormitories around five o'clock, we undressed by mimicking scbt olive green - the "Rome 75" - the bathrobe and the battalion showers were always in the same place to expect, generally with hot water. But it was not a rule ...

Among the various scents that hovered in the dormitory, including those of shower gel and deodorants, the stereo radios popped out of the lockers emitting the most popular motifs at the time. I remember Marco Ferradini's "Teorema" ... I have listened to it hundreds of times!

The military clothing was then placed in the gray metal cabinet, wearing civilian clothes that, for short hair, jeans and T-shirt, or moving all in groups, made us unmistakable and recognizable by everyone in free exit. Also from the military round then suppressed.

Leaving the barracks, we went towards the city center. The lucky ones took the car, maybe to go home. It was not difficult to dine in some economic tavern as an alternative to the evening barrack of barracks, often not very rich, at least when there were no pennette cheese and pepper; during these dinners in long tables, the managers were waiting anxiously and it could happen to raise a little 'too much elbow ... I happened once I went out with some Bresciani.

retreat

The 22 arrived quickly and, over the weekend, the ideal was to have a 36 or 48 hours, which allowed a little more freedom out of the barracks. The picket officer controlled in the central door the soldiers' cards on their return and, if you arrived two minutes later, you were punished with a few days of delivery and deprivation of the free exit.

In the dormitory there were those who wore pajamas, but the most preferred panty and t-shirt to wait for the 22 and 30 COUNTRY. In some departments the counterweight was in uniform and the head span he had to put all the others to attention when the day officer came in and show him the present, effective and absent force. At the switching off of the lights, however, there was a sort of unofficial second freedom ... someone got up, someone spoke but always contained.

The signal of SILENCE obliged to rest and if someone did not struggle to abandon themselves in the arms of Morpheus, someone else would sympathetically ask for the keys of the tank or did the magazine caterpillar to the chosen one already in the dream world ... I do not say that jolts from the cot!

  

6.30 wakes up

6.35 (almost up to 7?) Visit or report
7.00 Breakfast
7.45 pre-assembled (was it that?)
8.00 gathering and raising flag 
8.15 about the end of the gathering and the beginning of the activity 
10.00 (10.30?) Break shop
12.00 rancio
Pre-assembled 13.15 (same as above)
13.30 afternoon gathering
13.45 about end muster and start services
16.30 end of activities 
18.00 ammaina-flag 
18.05 free exit
19.00 ration (maybe it already started at 18.30?)
22.00 withdrawn
22.30 counterpoint
23.00 silence

(photo: web / Army / Defense)