 
 
When addressing issues such as the sacrifice of the alpini during World War one must proceed with extreme caution: on one side, not addressing the argument, you are likely to forget their contribution, military and human, in that conflict; on the other, If you overdo it by treating the topic with too much emphasis is likely to expire at a discounted demagogismo. About World War II all has been said and written. Texts were produced, video, Photo, stories; It now has a wide range of information telling us about the incident. Magnifying glass which focuses on this conflict, to try and explain the causes and effects, highlights the great characters of the history of the era (Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Stalin) and great Nations (Germany, France, United States, Russia and Japan). However, a large focus is likely to tarnish those who, on the field, He fought the war firsthand, in the front row. While not forgetting the atrocities suffered by the prisoners in the concentration camps, millions of men have sacrificed their lives to defend their homeland. Sacrificed their lives to defend their homeland. It's a repetition intentional, Although this sentence with modern eyes is outdated because ancient are words like sacrifice, Defense and homeland. These three concepts associated to our nation are now, in the eyes of us contemporaries, taken for granted: is natural and obvious that our nation does not require the sacrifice of its inhabitants to defend their boundaries in the interest of one's own country. If however today, These concepts are so cheap to pass unnoticed is because someone in the past he had to deal with. Starting from the natural principle that nothing gets you nowhere, then these three concepts sacrifice, Defense and homeland we had to get, win on the battlefield. In the 1940s was not granted for a man leave his family, charging a backpacker and walk on foot along the road to go to war. In Cuneo and province thousands of men have left their land and lent their hands of peasants to the homeland. The reason for this war was often too difficult to understand, and perhaps at that point didn't care even just try to understand the causes of that conflict. The only thing that mattered was return home alive and defend their land. On the first point, the story tells of the dramatic battles and long Siberian retreats, the second our alpini have always responded to this. It becomes increasingly difficult for us, today, understand that sacrifice because, unfortunately, with the passing of the years fail those protagonists who fought that war. There remain however those memorials theaters of clashes, of assaults, of battles, of deaths and prayers. These are places that we should learn to conserve because they represent our past, are testimony to this and a precious heritage for the future.
I extend a special memory at the 4th "Livorno" Infantry Division that between 1940 and the 1943 He fought on the southern side of Stura Valley near Passo Sant'Anna, Step 2156m, Top of Crosillias, in the province of Cuneo. The sacrifice of these men allowed him to maintain a bridgehead between the borders of Italy and France subsequently allowing French troops to break through the enemy lines on the north side, forcing the enemy to flight.
Roberto
