More and more participants, some to compete and those just to walk among the paths and vineyards that were the scene of the Great War. Here, in Giavera del Montello, near Treviso, for the sixth edition of what is now a consolidated and heartfelt appointment, paratroopers from all over Italy gathered together, the 10 and 11 June, for the Ballast of Montello, organized by the National Association of Paratroopers of Italy, ANPd'I of Treviso.
The ballast is a walk on 17 kilometers on dirt and asphalt, between climbs and descents, some deadly, with ten kilos on the shoulders. Above all, it is a path of belonging, of brotherhood, of sharing. No one is left behind. For this reason those who race running do it in pairs, because we help each other, if one does not make it the other stops. And it is the same for those traveling in a group, an example for all of them is the compact team of the Trieste team. The numbers speak of about two hundred people altogether, between those who were in the race or just walking. Luigi Bacco and Nicola Federici, from Verona, were the first to cross the finish line.
The ANPd'I section of Rome, the most numerous group with 19 participants along with president Adriano Tocchi, placed very well in the ranking, with third place, ex aequo with the team of Lodi, paratroopers instructors Nicola Trusiani and Giacomo Galati . This year a special prize for women was set up, and here too Rome played the lion's share, with first place for the paratroopers Silvia Pagnotta and Virginia Moranti (photo).
All made base at Villa Wassermann, whose park was the scene of the battle of the Solstice of the 19 June 1918. Saturday afternoon was dedicated to the memory of the fallen, with a ceremony at the English cemetery, also present the British consul. On Sunday, a very hot morning from the first hours, the ballast was carried out, a river of amaranthine Basques applauded by the ladies and followed for a while by the local children, with amazement and joy.
The one around Giavera del Montello is a historical journey carried out with the collaboration of the Emotional Museum of the Great War. Here, if you try to look at it with ancient eyes, to imagine how the area could have been a hundred years ago, you can almost see them, those soldiers thanks to whom we must still be free, those soldiers who did not hesitate to leave the houses, the family, the countryside and leaving for the front, fighting for an unknown enemy, for a homeland born a few decades ago, which they barely knew but felt like their own and honored it, like a mother.
Along the way, the memory coincides with the emotion, because it meets the monument dedicated to the great aviator Francesco Baracca, who was demolished during the battle of the Solstice and whose symbols were the hippogriff and the prancing horse and the latter is it was taken up and adapted by Enzo Ferrari, as a graphic sign for his legendary automobile team. The journey is resumed and, not far away, the honors are also paid to the Sacrario del Montello, which hosts fallen 9.325, unknown 3.226, who died during the Great War. Halfway, behind a curve there is one of the greatest reasons to be Italian, the monument to the Boys of the '99, those who were the eighteen-year-olds in the 1917, those who, after the defeat of Caporetto, were called they were almost children and they had to grow in a hurry, those who gave their blood and youth to Italy.
The ballast of Montello is run, but not only physically: it also runs on a thread that is that of shared memory, without opposing alignments and political ideologies, where the only colors allowed are those of the tricolor, which belong to all. And we run on the thread of thanks, of gratitude for those who have honored Italy by doing their duty. Ideally, as well as physically, those kilometers of ballast rejoin them, they still make them there.
