While military service is now done on a voluntary basis in Italy, it was still compulsory when I was of that age. A whole year of my life flushed down the toilet. Yay.
In the military you didn’t get to pick what to do, it was picked for you. I was assigned to the infantry, which is just a fancy name for cannon fodder.
In the unlikely event of a war, infantry has the glorious role of marching towards enemy artillery to be mowed down like bowling pins to use up their ammunition. Brilliant.
And not only you couldn’t choose what to do, you couldn’t choose where to do it either. They just assigned you to a particular regiment somewhere. I was very lucky because I was based in Chieti, just a few miles inland from Pescara. A quick digression:
Testament to the fact that human beings are tribal creatures, most Italian cities have a rival town, usually of similar size but not too far away. In the case of Pescara it’s Chieti.
(And if you ever forgot that, there was always some kind soul who would spray Chieti merda here and there all over Pescara to remind you. Thanks, buddy. I wasn’t quite sure who I should hate.)
While people in Pescara see Chieti as a town of country bumpkins who haven’t quite mastered the art of driving yet, Pescara is seen by the people of Chieti as a city of gypsies that smells like fish. I can’t speak for Chieti, but Pescara is a city of gypsies that smells like fish. What’s their point?
Back to the army. As I said earlier, the regiment was picked for you. The only one they wouldn’t pick for you was the parachute regiment, the infamous Fòlgore (the Thunderbolt) regiment. You had to volunteer to become a so-called parà.
But because not enough people wanted to do it (no wonder), they used to send parà officers on a recruiting mission, telling people how great it was, trying to persuade us to join them. (Yeah, let me think about that…)
I still remember the parà officer they sent us. You never saw such a smug, arrogant, stuck-up, full-of-shit bastard in your life. To use an expression I cannot take credit for, he was such a tight-ass, when he farted only dogs could hear it.
A friend of mine was actually persuaded, a good kid who genuinely thought it might be a good experience. He came back running after just two weeks, confirming all the clichés and stereotypes people heard about the parà.
Instead of posters of naked ladies, inside their lockers parà put up posters of Mussolini (not ideal for a quick wank), and when shaving in the morning, instead of the radio they would get all fired up listening to Mussolini’s infamous speech of the invasion of Ethiopia.
Going back to Chieti, our barracks were a sort of miniature society, only without any women. We had a small shop, a small café, a mini cinema and even a barber. We used to call him Cochise, after the famous Apache chief, because rather than a haircut you had your scalp removed.
Set aside the normal military hierarchy (corporals, sergeants, captains, that sort of thing), there was also another, unofficial hierarchy among the regular soldiers, who were supposed to be all equal but they were not.
If you had just started the military service, then you were a rana, a frog, and all the shit jobs were yours. Literally. Cleaning the toilets was one of your main occupations.
With the passing of time things slowly improved until, around month 10 or 11, you became a nonno, a grandfather, and then you did absolutely fuck all.
And if you were just days away from being discharged, then you were a fantasma, a ghost, virtually no longer there. Just like a ghost you were also untouchable, in the sense that even the officers wouldn’t dare say anything to you. (You didn’t even have to shave or polish your boots anymore.)
Ghosts could also frighten you. I still remember how, as a newly arrived recruit, in the middle of the night, when it was dead quiet and you struggled to fall asleep because you found yourself in such an alien environment, you were suddenly startled by the distant scream of a ghost, who would shout “È finita!” (It’s over!) at the top of his lungs, which not only gave you a jump, but it also reminded you that, while it was over for him, for you it had only just begun.
Looking back, I’m not sure if we ever learned anything during those twelve months. Not that I’m complaining, but we certainly didn’t learn anything about fighting. There was a lot of marching up and down, but that was pretty much it. (Good enough for cannon fodder, I suppose.)
The army is a self-contained world, with its own weird rules and rituals, so I had to learn those to get by, of course, but those rules and rituals are utterly meaningless in the real world. I could’ve done without.
But if smoking joints and reading porn magazines (I’m not sure reading is the right word here) are skills of some sort, then we certainly practised that a lot.
M.
PS: Believe it or not, the food in Chieti was actually not that bad. Italians can put up with a lot of shit, but poor food, that’s where they draw the line. I’m telling you, had the spaghetti been ever-so-slightly overcooked, there would’ve been a violent uprising.
PPS: Talking about those stupid rivalries between cities, I heard a good one from my brother, who lives in Milan. There’s a town east of Milan called Brescia. Women from Brescia are called bresciane. According to people in Milan, le bresciane tutte puttane. (They’re not, of course. If that was true I would’ve moved to Brescia ages ago.)
