Useful considerations for those who have 20 years, oggi
25 years. So many have passed since, 20enne, I had the privilege of entering the Aeronautical Academy, the role of Pilots Pilots in the course "Mars IV".
A short stay, then just when I wanted to start "for real", something went wrong and I was put out.
It is ¼ of a century, a time that makes you afraid. Actually, though, it does not seem to me that all these years have passed ... a bit because for 45 years I still feel in some respects twenty years (in fact when I was 20 years I was burdened with adult responsibility, while as an adult I I'm illudied that I can still experience experiences that no longer belong to my current age), a little because in my memory all those guys I shared months among the toughest of our lives always have the same faces and are always all boys of 18 -20 years.
What has been between me and them in this quarter of a century? Different experiences.
For them a career made of jobs in real operational missions as Italy did not see since World War II. For me, however, the attempt to reconstruct my life.
And the most natural and "desperate" attempt, for those who wanted to make the Military Pilot and did not succeed, is to try the road of "Civil Aviation."
Nothing more wrong, just because when things start as a "second choice", it starts badly, and considering the reality of the Italian civil aviation (nepotism and clientelism are only the noblest qualities, while every possible slander finds fertile soil and legitimacy in this environment), one can not get to anything other than a second and even more destructive "debacle". Especially when you are one that things do not hold it and it has made its motto of course Mars IV ("O reach or break") ...
Last weekend I saw those "guys" in a beautiful gathering and I found them practically "intact" as they were on the human side and I can not help but be impressed by how they are now on the professional side.
Their professional history is not known to me, but those decorations that lead to uniform say everything.
Real decorations, not those of "colonnelloni" a few decades ago. Taken into actions of real war, not in exercises, operating in the most disparate roles (Pilots, Navigators, Gari and "Services").
And while I find them with unchanged and mutual affection, sharing a lunch in the elegant, and not ostentatious setting that distinguishes the Officers, I observe them for how they are also found among themselves.
What I saw spontaneously gave rise to the comparison with what was found "civil" environment (even the most noble and not only related to the world of flight) in these 25 years ... Well, the distance is just what separates me from Mars, ... but the planet, not the course!
Many of my fellow Academy members, while remaining in service, have lost sight and have been found among themselves and with me now. What are they talking about? Of their families, the inflatable they bought to go on vacation or the fact that to be behind the sparkling son of Kite Surf, you have to stay in shape and make sport (maybe not the "kite", but the "windsurf " Yes). Not just a word or a hint of the actions for which today they are all covered with awards and medals.
Frankly, it was a great surprise, because in the "civil" world, made of Aeroclubs and flying schools, I've become accustomed to some boring subjects who call themselves "Commanders" when they do not come in uniforms, flight suits and follow them of ignorant lecchini also that if you do not have the titles to present you in this way you are committing the offense of "person's replacement". People who do nothing but tell each other that they have saved their airplane (Piper or the like, including the Airbus 320) from that ever-threatening cumulus, or any other matter of no account.
And what titles do they really have for them? Okay, because if you're a beginner, they'll always make sure that you have to pay. From the cafe at the airport bar to the pilot's license, the airplane's allowance to their salary (not sure yours, who is not or is not protected from regular recruitment), up to to the prostitute they will spend next night. Yet they earn a lot of money, say at least twice as much as my former Academy Award-winning members.
And while 25 years of Armed Forces make you a senior officer with unparalleled life experience, what do they give you in the civil environment for everything you're paying for and you believe it's an investment?
ILLUSIONS. Yes, especially those who are teaching you a profession. Not to mention moral values, traditions. Among my civilian classmates, the only tradition they actually know and pursue with scrupulous observance is that of the recommendation. And I'm really happy to have nothing to do with them anymore.
Why "illusions"? Because to teach you would need to have experience. Like the one that my classmates have now, certainly not those of the newly patented kids who call themselves "Commanders" acting as their "Top Gun" and instructors to total hours of flight hoping to reach the minimum requirements for a "low cost".
"Illusions," I said ... Well, this word has changed for me in these 25 years.
For us, "Martians", it was unambiguously identified with the title of a book by Richard Bach that we had read at least 3 times well before entering the Academy and becoming more illuminated and important to us than the Gospel itself.
Today, I learned at my expense the classification of Sciascia on Men, Means-Men, Homemakers and Quacquaraquas, if I should again inspire the title of a book by Richard Bach, to define how I metabolized those 25 years of life, I would choose "Alien to Earth "....
