The flight was high, ethically and morally and not because the issue concerned the paratroopers. Eagles, definitely, or lions if you prefer, in any case alpha people, people with straight backs, who are not ashamed of what they are and rather are proud of it, yesterday as today, "proud of our past, always worthy of our inevitable future… ”, as the Paratrooper prayer, which pulls forward despite, in this historical moment, it is fashionable to "shoot" on uniforms and on the Homeland. Unless then invoke the presence of soldiers and law enforcement officers every other day as well. And those who were not there did not miss it.
At the monumental cemetery of Verano, Sunday 28 May, the Roman section of the National Association of Paratroopers of Italy, ANPd'I, commemorated the paratroopers of the Folgore - also Nembo and Azzurro - with the ceremony that annually commemorates the sacrifice of those boys who chose to die on the front of Neptune and Anzio. Many amaranth Basques of all ages, a leitmotif of ideals and love of homeland that went from Santo Pelliccia, lion of the Folgore of El Alamein, to Narilli, Mario Tema and Harold Citterich who joined the Social Republic, to today's parachuting instructors of the ANPd'I up to the students of the last course. There are many other Arma associations, Bersaglieri, Aereonautica, Marina just to name just three, because when ideals are shared it is right to be there, no matter the color of the uniform. On the other hand, although officially invited, the delegations from the United States, England, Germany, France and Poland were missing. “England and Germany have declined due to previous commitments, the others have not even responded to the invitation. Only Russia did it, and it is present with its military attaché ... ", observed the president of the ANPd'I of Rome Adriano Tocchi, who in his speech wanted to remember why those guys made the choice to go to fight against the Anglo-Americans, even though they knew they were going to die. "... It does not seem reasonable to dismiss so much value as an act of youthful unconsciousness, neglect of danger, consideration of death as someone else's experience ... On the contrary, theirs was a choice of profound moral significance, made in the absence of constraints, without pre-established points of reference , in a regime of absolute autonomy of judgment, a condition without which moral approval and disapproval have no foundation. It is in this way that the history of the Folgore Regiment is configured as a "collective myth", a social myth that has motivated and finalized action ... For this reason, myths are the moral glue of a group, of a community that intends to present itself as engine of renewal ... The myth is therefore linked to the sense of solidarity and adhesion to the community itself, and the extraordinary dedication of everyone ...
It was a full morning, sunny and meaningful. A Mass celebrated with traditional ritual, in Latin. And the notes of Silence, the Paratrooper's prayer, a collective reflection on the sense of honor, on the homeland, on the importance of soldiers, who work in silence even when we "civilians" think we should not, for Italy and despite Italy, indispensable for a country that wants to continue to be sovereign and that should return to certain founding and shared ideals, which are winners and losers and all honor its memory.
"But what is meant by memory?", Began the national president of the National Paratroopers Association of Italy, General Marco Bertolini. “… There is a memory of nostalgia, the desire to return to the age of 20, which will not come back anyway. There is a memory of regret ... Then there is another memory, I would say the ugliest, the memory of resentment: it is a memory that struggles, it is a memory that puts fences, it is a memory that considers history a ordalia, a kind of judgment of God which gives victory to the just and defeat to the unjust, which rewards the former and punishes the latter, starting with oblivion, the punishment of oblivion. And there is another memory, and it is the one we celebrate today. It is the memory of the gratitude that all peoples owe to their soldiers. Because they are that indispensable ingredient that make a society, a community, that make a country a homeland. There is no homeland without the soldiers who died for it. I speak of soldiers in general, of all eras, of all the wars that have seen the development of this homeland. We are the result of work but also of sacrifices of soldiers who have expressed themselves over the centuries, often fighting against each other. All these soldiers, the winners and the losers, have the same dignity. … They make our country a homeland, of which we must be proud ”. In conclusion, Marco Bertolini recalled how the ANPd'I was born after the war and wanted by all the paratroopers (as happened for all the other weapon associations), who had also fought on opposite fronts, because they were able to find a identity of values that contributed to rebuilding an ideal of love of country in a country that was destroyed.
The paratroopers of the Folgore rest under a stele in the center of the Verano. Before they were in another point of the monumental cemetery, the same place where the survivors of the battle for Rome, who felt guilty about not having fallen with their fellow soldiers, wanted to be buried, all together. They too were honored with a laurel wreath, the plant par excellence of poets and heroes.
