(Tale of military life: of an alpine officer)

I'm an alpine, I came home, I managed to get home, after the days at the front on the Don.

We then learned that we "had to" stay in line because other departments were retiring and we had to ensure coverage of that maneuver.

Then the order, the retreat, the longest days, interminable and still, even now, I do not realize, after the exit from the bag, that last period spent waiting to be loaded on the translated.

Those turbulent days had been exhausting for the accumulated fatigue, for the pain of being alone, without the many companions left in the snow. Now, on the train that brought us home, we were in a few, still whole, and with us the wounded of the last battle.

And now I'm here, I'm back in the family.

I do not yet realize, today, all that happening events, and yet months have passed since my return. The only thing that I feel and of which I am sure is that only thanks to my family I managed to defeat the worst enemy, the invisible one, that war that had remained inside me.

They did not leave me alone; surrounded me with affection, more or less obvious, shaken me with strong words, perhaps sometimes offensive to make me react when the pain and loneliness that pushed me from within seemed to prevail over life, the desire to live.

It is not a question of intelligence, of culture, or better, of the culture of love.
I understood how hard they worked, my family members, my wife and even that little son born when I was at the front, often seeing myself absorbed in my silence. In those moments I felt alone even when I was among so many people who loved me. I felt lonely and nobody could help me, I had set myself, if I had succeeded, that I, only me, could overcome those difficult situations that every day, new, seemed to me like nightmares, of that war that had slipped into my veins, it flowed in my blood polluted by that suffering.

I remembered that I was not alone at the front. There were the comrades, there were the other Alpines of my platoon; we were more than a team, a solid and strong group of friends, I would say brothers.

Then, after the tragedy, all of us survivors thought we had won at least on that fate that we wanted to see only march and die. Instead another long, hard battle would begin.

The loneliness that assailed me in the first days of my return now, in a few days, became less heavy, affected my mood less. Loneliness is that evil that attacks you when the memories, the suffering of those memories assails you, with violence, and you can not reject it, you are not able to drive away those images, those lamentations, those gasps. Then you feel overwhelmed, you seem to drown in that liquid world that is life.
There I understood that, alone, I would not have made it. When I was alone at home, when I was alone in the yard and saw life around me, when I walked in the woods, when I went to make firewood, I saw my inability to stop that new war that unfortunately was renewed painfully inside myself.

I escaped from the room and made me welcome from the large kitchen; I left the farmyard and took refuge in the shade of the forest, as if in that sweet shade I could find my loved ones, the old mother who had changed deeply after my father's death, I saw the loving hand of my wife, the smile happy with my baby, who every day grew bigger and stronger.

My wife also rebuked me, very sweetly, seeing my evil: "Excuse me, but what do you ask of life? You should be happy to be here with me, with our baby, with your mom. To be happy you have to want it. We must drive away the many bad things that you have lived and see above all the good that is around you".

Already easy to say, but she was right, she was close to me, she took care of me, she tried with a discrete caress to make me feel that the world was that of our family, not that of the trench and the long days of retreat.

It was not always like that, I spent moments of discouragement at moments of reflection on what I had experienced. One thing I remembered, obsessive, of those winter months spent in the trenches and, then, still during the march of the retreat: the lack of shadows.

In the days of both autumn and winter, in Russia, there were no shadows.
There was an annoying widespread light, as there was no difference between heaven and earth. It almost seemed like we were part of the landscape, especially in the last days, when we were encrusted with snow just like the few twigs in the bushes that had lost all the characteristics of a plant, seemed dead, and perhaps ourselves, if someone saw us walking in those conditions could have considered us the dead who walked. In fact, there were not even the shadows that showed that we were materially alive. No, we did not leave shadows.

Here, back in the warmth of family love, I realize that by day, when I move, there is always my shadow with me. So here I am thinking, to understand how beautiful and useful that silent presence is. Shadow makes me feel alive. I'm there! That silhouette that light projects on the floor, on the pavement, is me!

Shadow ... above all, I found my life in the shadow of my family. My family is my true welcoming shadow.

I went to a wheat field. The sun is hidden behind a cloud of a curious shape, which reminds me of the stories of grandparents, when I was a child. The sun is hidden but its rays pierce the cloud like lines drawn in the air, just like in the church, when a ray enters from a side window and cuts the darkness of the aisles dry.
I am still staring at the changing shape of the cloud hanging up there, which seems to be still but, in reality, it is slowly sailing in the wind. Those rays draw my shadow on the ground and then I would like to cry out, but I do not do it, otherwise someone could take me for crazy. But I'm just happy to be alive! My wife comes to meet me, holds our baby by the hand.

Here is my happiness, my family. I hold on to them. We sketch a race holding hands. Here, one thing I had not done yet. Run and then stop, look at the fields and, above all, tighten to the chest my woman and our little man who had been generated during a license I had obtained, and made me forget, for a few
days the stupid, continues, slaughter of the war.

Now I was back, I felt reborn every day more and when I came out of the labyrinth I was forced to enter, I realized that thanks to my family's love, I had saved myself. Now I had new legs to run, I had new eyes to smile, I had new hands to embrace.

The shadow that witnessed that life followed us, showed us that we were united, that we were alive the three of us.

I found my voice again. I could go to church to thank God for giving me my family, for giving me a new life through and with them.

For years I hesitated, avoided telling this story of mine, only mine.

How I could live in torment, in remorse of what I had done and what I had not done, of what I had suffered.

From the day of my return all things, in their measure, regained their value, beginning with the small things and this recovery had happened thanks to my family.
I returned with the thought to the first days. I remembered my mother's discouragement, immediately after my return, shaking her head, seeing me thoughtful and without light in my eyes. Now I see that she too rejoices in my new life.

But I have to repeat and I will do so as long as I have a voice, that if I am reborn, I owe it to my family, my wife, my son and my mother.

I took my son on his lap and said: "Do you know that when you were born, I was at war?" and then, after a brief silence, I resumed: "War is a terrible thing where one kills or one is killed without knowing why." I do not know why I said those words. My son looked at me as if he had not understood, and my wife added that she would rather say those things when she would be older. He could not understand what war, suffering, especially his father's.

At that moment I thought that, in reality, she herself knew very little about that evil.
In fact, my son had not reacted in any way to my question. Surely he had been troubled, even without understanding. Suddenly he hugged me and I felt the sweet weight of his head on my heart. His head, reclined on my chest gave me that confidence that I had missed for the months at the front, where death was present in every hour, every day.

Here is the life that resumed more and more in me, thanks to him.