La pat on the back received from the instructor lasts a moment. It simulates the touch on the helmet given to the divers before each dive: for Edoardo Carminati, Filippo Ferrandina, Massimiliano Molinari and Roberto Bertolucci it is the beginning of the future in operating group divers (GOS) of the Navy.
They made it, everyone is here for them: the families who supported them, the instructors who saw them as 'students', the expert divers who from today start calling them 'colleagues'.
In blue uniform, lined up in formation in the square of the group command of divers and raiders (COMSUBIN) "Teseo Tesei" from La Spezia, relive the 11 months of very tough tests that brought them here: over 200 dives, day and night, modulated on increasing difficulty and with the use of specialized equipment, such as oxygen rebreathers, mixed gas rebreathers, traditional diving suits and underwater equipment powered from the surface.
"The underwater world – declared the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Enrico Credendino – it is a complex world with numerous infrastructures, and it will be increasingly populated by sensors, drones, submarines and mother ships used for both civil and military purposes, but the human factor has a key role today and always. The skills, nature and specificity of divers represent the essential basis for being relevant and for allowing our country to manage control and projection in the underwater dimension in the wider Mediterranean".
The 4 newly certified remained masters of body and mind in an environment that remains a challenge to be taken up. An element to dominate. They got to the end with a dream in their heads, and motivations that pushed them beyond every difficulty. They did it together, always counting on each other, and on the human and professional solidity of the instructors of the Schools group.
"The Schools Group – commented the commander of COMSUBIN, Rear Admiral Stefano Frumento – is one of the pillars of the command group of divers and raiders, which has the vital task of training new recruits. The end of the beginning, therefore, and the starting point for acquiring a professional reference for the country, consisting of the ability to work in technically difficult contexts, often extreme conditions and with systems and equipment capable of reaching very deep operational depths. The diver is also an underwater artificer, capable of carrying out his risky work in water, his reference environment".
This journey has just begun, there is a long way to go. When necessary, they will descend to depths of up to 300 meters to rescue damaged submarines, collect evidence following underwater explosions, and clear explosive remnants of war found in the sea, lakes and rivers of the country. These are the tasks assigned to them: a few weeks ago, a team from ready-to-use department of the GOS intervened in Savona to support the Genoa prosecutor's office regarding the two explosions that had caused a breach in the hull of the oil tanker Seajewel.
"The ordinary diving course is not for everyone, as the numbers confirm: 8 of us started last January, only 4 today receive the blue beret, symbol of the specialty. The standards are very high, the final result is a conscious, skilled operator, able to manage stress and maintain self-control in emergency situations where his life and that of others are at stake. Looking back, these guys will see what they have done not as a sacrifice, but as the choice to be part of an elite group, devoted to serving the country. I ask the GOS divers to take the baton from their colleagues in the Schools group, ensuring that the new recruits always have their eyes fixed on the right star. Because 'He who is fixed on a star does not turn around'", concluded Rear Admiral Frumento.
We move forward with the certainty of being special operators, who carry out very important actions for the safety of all. Significant people.
