"The most beautiful job in the world and the circles" (the values ​​of being a soldier)

(To Falconfab)
25/05/16

"Dad, come out every day with the same dress, I ask the mother where you go, and she says, 'at work'. What's your job? "," The dress is called uniform, I wear it because I'm a soldier ".

Richard was puzzled, for him the soldier was a big and bad man who kills even worse enemies, the soldier was a bit 'Superman and a little' Crudelia de Mon. But he had never seen his personal super hero use violence.

"And every day you shoot someone?" "No, for heaven's sake! You almost never shoot, fortunately ".

Riccardo was confused: "But then what are you doing?" "Servant of the Fatherland, son" and, as the night follows the day, inevitable, the other question came.

"What is the padria? Why do you serve her? "," La Patria, with the ti, is that place where we have our roots, that place where our fathers lived and, the servant because ... "," ok, I understood what the padriaconlattì"And, satisfied or bored, went back to embedding his bricks to invent a new spaceship. But that day, going into the barracks, I felt a sense of void. That encyclopedic explanation of Patria did not represent me anymore.

Why obey and risk for one padria? What did I have to do with the land of ancestors I never knew? And those I know, would they really be proud of having a cross in memory in place of a child? Disappointed and tired, with his shoulders bent under the invisible weight of empty words, I felt imprisoned in a job that I could no longer change but that I did for venal interest. Since then, I began to celebrate the flag-raising by duty, without enthusiasm. I whispered a hymn 'distant' and I wondered how true it was that, if Italy had called, I would have been 'ready for death'. I knew the answer, but the rhetorical judge of my conscience forbade me to admit a fearful truth.

Some time later, the day came for a ceremony, an anniversary or a feast that honored past or future martyrs. "Dad, you're wearing a new dress today!" Riccardo hears the clinking of the medals that I am arranging on the diagonal and shouts with enthusiasm: "WOOOW!". I hold them loosely in my hand. I just feel cold metal.

"What are these iron circles?", "Medals" I reply hastily. The days when I was proud of their weight are long gone. Today they are just a habit, a vanity. But Riccardo, with the astonishment of a child, is fascinated. He twists and turns them between his chubby fingers and asks: “Can you give them to me? I'll take them to school! " “Well, no. I cannot give them to you, these should not be wasted, they have a deep meaning and, if given away, they lose their value. They must be earned ”.

“And how did you earn them? What do they mean? ”, I can't answer, my head is spinning. I remember a young man who, with the unconsciousness of his 'green years', looks at a destroyed country. I see, with the eyes of memory, a city covered with smoke. The mind recalls that dusty day when I cursed the flies that wanted to drink around my tired eyes from the nine hours on guard. That veiled woman was coming towards me. I ordered her to stop without conviction. '11/5' would come years later and I didn't think about bombs or attacks. And then, those black eyes, beautiful, desperate and sincere, begged me to trust. Instinct overcame fear and I allowed her to get closer. Then I saw him. Hidden in the abundant robes, the child was in her arms. He was 6 or XNUMX years old. It was white, that white that preludes sleep without return. The chest rose and fell to snatch the last minute from a cynical and inevitable death. I called the marshal who called the doctor. The latter, with his lunch still in his mouth, ran beside me, embraced the dirty child and, chewing on the morsel without saying a word, took it with him. Mother, sitting on a sidewalk, wept for a long time, in silence. Later I learned that ten days earlier they had killed her husband in front of her eyes. He had been a doctor but he had treated everyone, even the children of padria wrong. They admitted the baby to the infirmary. I never went to see him. I was afraid to feel the affection that, shortly thereafter, would become pain of loss.

A couple of days o a century laterwhile I was counting the minutes that were missing to get rid of that other, eternal watch, I saw her. The veiled lady, showing a blue step, entered the base. I had asked her story, they told me that the child had had some semi-serious illness. In a peaceful country the parents would worry a little and take him to the doctor, two antibiotics and away, again to play. But there, where there was no longer a homeland, a lonely and confused widow had chosen, in the theca-pharmacy of her newly-killed husband, the medicines for her son. He had a wrong mixture and had poisoned him. Desperate had asked everyone for help: no one could help her. Nobody wanted to save that family infected by the blood of the traitor. Swallowed pride and dignity, she had also gone from those to whom she should have felt hatred and resentment. It was derided. Then, before letting himself die, he decided to give his child to an unknown doctor, who had come from a land of other ancestors. With the mind immersed in these thoughts, the hand on the rifle and the watchful eyes, awaited a few moments and here they are, hand in hand, mother and child, going out, uttering unknown words of thanksgiving. They had saved him. 

"Dad dad! How did you earn them? "With a lump in my throat and shiny eyes I returned to reality," doing the most beautiful job in the world ". "He gave them to you padriaconlattì? What do they mean? "," I do not know the meaning anymore, but they remind me that the country is the place where a doctor can make a child like you smile without asking who his father is. The country is the land you gave me on loan. The Motherland is you, the mother and the grandparents. La Patria is that place where my family can live happily and that I, grateful, will defend at all costs ".

  

Freely inspired by real facts. Italy 2013. Kosovo, 1999.