LEVERAGE MILITARY SERVICE: TELL YOUR STORY

Compulsory military service, currently suspended, has affected generations of young Italians. The stories of these people are the focus of the Blitz Quotidiano website, with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Defense. Compulsory military service – now suspended – affected generations of young Italians who, upon reaching the age of 18, were required to wear the uniform. The so-called “lever,” also known as “naja,” has thus represented over the years an institution through which a part of our country’s history has been written. This is where the initiative, created with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Defense, the website, comes from.Blitz Quotidiano: “History of Italy. Your memory of military service, send us your photo”.
The idea is to celebrate the history of Italy by involving its readers and encouraging them to tell their own story through a photo, an article, a postcard or a memory. “An initiative that we have thought of to celebrate the beautiful country” reads the information website, which aims to create a page with “the most beautiful, most exciting photos, capable of evoking emotions and making us relive some of the moments that have characterized and marked our Nation”. Yesterday’s boys, today’s men, who over time have maintained the memory of that period of their lives, often with the desire to recount it or even to meet again their comrades.
As is well known, the compulsory draft service was suspended in 2004 with the Martino law. An institution that lasted 143 years, from the birth of the Kingdom of Italy until January 2005, when the last batch of conscripts were sworn in. Those months of compulsory conscription (first 24 then 12) represented a window into a world previously unknown to many young people: their own Nation. That call to serve actually forced the young people who reached adulthood to leave their homes, perhaps for the first time, and cross the borders of their own country. Not surprisingly, many recognize compulsory military service as a tool that facilitated the building of the Italian nation, as well as the spread of the Italian language. The conscripts were replaced byvolunteers, Compulsory military service has been replaced by professional military service, which is more suited to the current geopolitical and strategic scenario.