Photography Giuseppe Lami
Yesterday evening after dinner in the canteen at Camp Arena, (they were the 20 local time, three hours and a half later the Italian time) this morning because I was finalizing its preparations as planned I had to take off for the Gulistan embedded in the 7th Alpini Regiment. On the basis had already declined an air of sadness at the news of a Alpimo killed by a sniper, of which the media had already spread the name.
So an hour later I found myself waiting at the airport in Herat, the body of Corporal Matteo Miotto, Alpine of the 7th Regiment Alpini Brigade Julia, who is arrived on board a U.S. helicopter, escorted by another helicopter.
other climbers have downloaded the body wrapped in a flag tricolor in an eerie silence acquit the cold and darkness of the airport.
was opened immediately after the funeral hall in Italy 150.
The ceremony was simple but full of sacredness and I was deeply moved, creating a memory so strong that it probably never forget.
This was my New Year's 2011 in Herat, Afghanistan.
Photography Giuseppe Lami
This is letter that Matthew has sent in October to the Mayor of Thiene who has read City Council during the commemoration of November 4. The style and the sensitivity that remains has become a cult document.
I invite you to read it and spread it.
I want to thank my behalf, but especially on behalf of all our military mission, who we want to hear and not worthy of his thoughts only in sad occasions such as when the flag wraps four alpine died doing their duty. They run
days in which identity and values \u200b\u200bseem outdated, suffocated by a reality that denies us the time to think about what we are, where we are, what we belong ...
These unfortunate people of earth, where corruption dominates, where control is not only governments but also still the clan leaders, these people have managed to preserve their roots after leading armies, the largest armies marched on their homes in vain. The essence of the Afghan people are living, their traditions are repeated unchanged, we may feel bad, archaic, but from thousands years have remained unchanged. People who are born, live and die for the sake of their roots, their land and it feeds on. Then you realize that this strange people from strange habits sometimes has something to teach us too.
As every day we leave for a patrol. As we approach our means Lynx, before going out, looking down, a gesture of superstitious ritual, signs of the cross ... In armored vehicles, indoors, not a word. Only the radio that we update on possible insurgents spotted on possible areas for ambushes, nothing in the air ... Aware that the soil of Afghanistan is littered with homemade bombs ready to explode with the passage of six tons of our Lynx.
We are the first half of the column, each meter may be the last, but not think about it. The head is too busy to notice something unusual in the ground, we are finally on the outskirts of the village ...
we are greeted by children who become ten twenty, thirty, we were surrounded, put her hand to his mouth already know what they want: they're hungry ...
Look at them: they are barefoot, wearing a rag dress that eye has been more than a brother or sister ... Of their fathers and their mothers even the shadow, the village, our village, is a bustle of children who have all the air was not there to play ...
them are not by chance, have four, five years, larger than ten, and with them a pile of brushwood. Then look carefully under the brush there is a donkey, overloaded, brings the harvest, are working ... and elder brothers, is meant not more than fourteen with a flock leaving stunned even our Alpine Sardinian people of goats and sheep knows something ...
Behind the windows of the huts of mud and hay an adult is watching us, you give the bearded sixty seventy years and then discover that it has maximum thirty ... Even the shadow of women, those few that are slow to return to our arrival in the village wear the full burqa: there will be forty degrees in the shade ...
little that we leave him here with us. Each before leaving for a patrol must know well to fill their pockets and half with water and food: some will not serve us ... Then we say that we have changed the Alpine ...
I remember when my grandfather talked about the war: "Bocia bad thing, lucky that you do not you ever vedarè ..." And here I am, Gulistan Valley, central Afghanistan, that strange hat on his head with the pen that us is a sacred mountain. If you could hear me, I'd say "seen, grandfather, that you you will Sbai ..."
Corporal Matthew Miotto
Thiene (Vicenza) - Valley of the Gulistan, November 2010