There are many military memories accumulated in just 12 months of military service, let alone those who have dedicated an entire career to military life.
Someone thinks they have to absolutely keep confidential (and it is not clear why) even after the leave, others are more available by proposing and helping to make known unknown aspects of our army, such as humanity.
The lieutenant returns to the limelight with a story of gut feeling. social relationship with the locality hosting an exercise. A place where he went several times organizing himself better and better. Philip premised: this post had been used the previous year by my marshal and master. A figure to whom Filippo seems very attached and who has transmitted to him - excuse the pun - the passion for broadcasting and beyond.
The retirement home
In the late 70's early 80's, every month of May the Army broadcasting departments were engaged in an exercise called Dry-Iron. My battalion in this exercise lined up in the Veneto plain where my team and I made up of 10/12 soldiers were camped in a location on the Berici Hills near San Giovanni in Monte.
An ad hoc area for "electromagnetic visibility". Back then it was important to be high up or in wide spaces to ensure link optimization. Both the vehicles and the antennas were positioned in a small clearing on the ridge of a hill owned by an association which managed a rest home for the elderly.
With the marshal and "maestro", Filippo went a month earlier for a reconnaissance and on the occasion they made agreements with the management of the structure for the elderly who authorized the use of the area and the paid consumption of meals in the canteen, offering the use of a private room. This retirement home was very beautiful, had many services for guests and was already barrier-free for that time.
Choice of personnel
Going to exercise at high altitudes and isolated had its pros and cons, but what unites each of these places is the memory of the few people who lived there and the special relationship we were able to establish with them. Given the context, the choice of young conscripts to be interested in the exercise was fundamental, opting for the more polite ones.
The ration sounds
The entrance to the cafeteria was punctuated by a waltz which was played at noon with the sound system and which was also very well heard inside the rooms where the guests stayed. To enter to eat we had to wait for the end of this Viennese waltz.
After a few days a lady from Rovigo, quite cheerful, invited me to dance. I accepted and with a smile and boots on our feet we danced the waltz; I was the only one involved because the others didn't know how to dance.
As I danced I noticed that other guests would also like to take a round of dance and, over the next few days, I accommodated three other ladies.
The Nodal Center
At the nodal center everything was going well, there was no problem. One morning from the command they told me that I had to bring a line to the infrastructural nodal center to enter the national network, I immediately started a reconnaissance on foot to figure out how to lay the cable.
It wasn't a complicated job, there was only one obstacle to overcome, the crossing of the provincial road, there were no trees to hang the cable.
Fixed thinking
A short distance away I noticed an unused concrete circular pipe crossing the road, inside was grass and dirt. With a stone I tied the strings and we threw it into the tube. After a few attempts we realized that this system was not good, the stone hit the walls and stopped. Even the attempt with a row of branches attached to each other failed because they rested on the earth and did not advance.
By now it was time for lunch, I interrupted work and went to eat with my thoughts fixed on that cable... (Continue)
Read second part - The lieutenant's tales: the corporal cat
Photo: author
