A special train crossed Italy, leaving an indelible mark on the souls of those who saw it pass.
Having left Trieste last October 6th, that convoy finally concluded its journey in Rome, where, welcomed by the civil, military and religious authorities, led by the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto, it arrived in the early morning of November 5000th, on the occasion of the Day of National Unity and Armed Forces Day, after having traveled over 730 kilometers and touched XNUMX stations.

We are talking about the Train of the Unknown Soldier and a truly extraordinary Journey, which expanded the historical route of 1921, to finally embrace all the Regions of Italy never reached before.

The initiative stems from a proposal put forward by the Group of Gold Medals for Military Valor of Italy and is part of the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Translation of the Unknown Soldier and His solemn Entombment in the Shrine of the Altar of the Fatherland.

Favorably received by Parliament, the undertaking was then developed and arranged by the Defence General Staff, in collaboration with the Ferrovie dello Stato Group, the FS Foundation and the Mission Structure for the Promotion of National Anniversaries and the Participatory Dimension of the New Generations of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

To the 17 stops originally planned in the regional capitals crossed, at least a hundred extraordinary ones were added, authorised during the works on the basis of the specific requests received by the managers as the Journey gradually unfolded.

Where it was not possible to agree on stops, a slow transit was arranged, to allow the many people, who were gathering even in the smallest stations, to fully express a moving greeting, full of respect and gratitude.

Such participation is certainly attributable to the profound meaning that the Unknown Soldier holds for every Italian who knows how to trace and place the Figure at the top of the Nation's identity symbolism, together with the Flag, the Anthem and the President of the Republic.

In this sense, the Events held in the context of the Centenary have certainly revived its popularity, especially for the benefit of the younger generations, who have also been appropriately informed by the various initiatives developed within the Schools to which they belong.

In particular, the implementation of the impressive “Unknown Soldier, Citizen of Italy” Project (1921-2021), promoted by the Gold Medals for Military Valor Group of Italy, has determined a very strong and widespread diffusion of the ideals recalled by the figure of the “Unknown Soldier”, whose recognition as “Favorite Son” has so far been claimed and made official by 4558 Municipalities in Italy, through the awarding of Honorary Citizenship, issued by an equal number of Municipal Councils with an almost unanimous vote.

We can therefore affirm that this Journey of the Train of the Unknown Soldier took place in a Country that not only carefully guards its Memory, but of which 57,66% of the 7904 Municipalities that compose it are honored to proudly claim its belonging to their Community, with the legitimate and well-founded hope that the remaining Municipalities will follow its virtuous example as soon as possible.

In a world where everything seems to be due, it is imperative to express our most heartfelt thanks to all those who contributed to the brilliant success of this historic event, never done before and unlikely to be replicated in the future; in the obvious impossibility of naming them one by one, starting with the 270 railway workers who took turns in driving the Convoy, it seems necessary to make some exceptions, starting with General Alfonso Manzo, Head of the V Department of the Defence General Staff, and Engineer Luigi Cantamessa, General Director of the Fondazione Ferrovie dello Stato.

A special thought must therefore be addressed to General Fulvio Poli, Head of the Military Representation present on board the Train, for having been, in fact, the Ambassador of the Unknown Soldier, receiving in this role, at every moment of the Journey, the deferential greeting of the Authorities encountered, as well as of the many people who simply wanted to approach him to shake his hand emblematically.

General Poli was also the tireless and passionate host in presenting the multimedia exhibition on board to visitors, always arousing the interest and attentive participation of the guests, with particular reference to the many students who went there with their teachers.

As already mentioned, the original idea of ​​this initiative was to propose a route of the Train that, crossing all the Regions of our beloved Country, could represent a form of Homage dedicated to all the Soldiers of Italy who, in every age, moving from everywhere, had finally reached, with their faith, combined with their most hidden hopes, the places where the Fatherland had called them to fulfill their Duty.

Many of them managed to return; many others, unfortunately, did not.

This last consideration has therefore determined a further purpose, perhaps even more noble, that of symbolically bringing home those who had not returned, so that they could ideally see again, at least for a moment, the places where the last moments of farewells had taken place, with their gazes turned towards the streets of youth and, even more, towards the dear faces of loved ones, who would then keep the most heartbreaking of memories for their entire lives.

The awareness that we are all direct descendants of the generations that fought for the freedom, independence and unity of the Fatherland, from the times when Italy did not yet exist up to the present day, has marked, at every hour of the day and night, the moments spent in anxious anticipation of the Train, whose arrival, heralded by whistles, at first thinned out by the distance and then increasingly shrill, as the Convoy approached, has everywhere aroused emotions destined to remain forever in the hearts of those who experienced them.

In those few seconds, each of us was able to think back to our own history, to that of our families of origin, finding, in those precise moments, the profiles of our ancestors, often known only through photographs yellowed by time and handed down as relics from father to son, so that the memory of those broken lives would not be forgotten.

How precious peace is and how little we realize it!

As happened in 1921, also on this occasion anyone who wanted to prepare for the passage of the Train of the Unknown Soldier, ended up finding something intimate, authentically personal, which unites us all in the same sharing of common belonging to the same People and the same History.

Many will have noticed that those who approached the passage of the Soldier's Train, were showing off a jewel in their buttonhole: it is the "Forget Me Not", which, thanks to another meritorious proposal of the Group of Gold Medals for Military Valor of Italy (see the Project "Fallen for the Fatherland, Jewel in the Buttonhole of the Italians" on the website www.movm.it), we hope it can soon officially become the National Flower of the Fallen of Italy, to be worn as a distinctive sign of the desire to tangibly remember our Fallen on the occasion of the Celebrations foreseen by the Civil Calendar of the Italian Republic.

Just as the Train has linked in a single route the thousands of places it has crossed throughout the Country, the message that is entrusted to us cannot be other than that of contributing with all our resources to the unity of our People, to the maintenance of peace and to the pursuit of the common interest, in order to overcome, especially in questions of vital importance, every sterile particularism, rising above the narrow and depressing horizon of the idle polemics to which we too often abandon ourselves.

Before the Unknown Soldier, who represents all those who fell for their country, we can only bow and pause in recollection, allowing our soul to speak.

And in the face of the immense Sacrifice represented by the sum of every Life consecrated to the Service of the Nation, we will then listen to the heartfelt and persuasive appeal to the duty of moral seriousness and to the sense of the deepest responsibility to be exercised in every moment of our existence.

In other words, it is up to each of us to demonstrate concretely, day after day, that we deserve what we have received, knowing how high a price was paid by the generations that preceded us to allow us to live today in a country that is finally united, free, independent and democratic, made so by the Sacrifice of Its most valiant Sons.

Prof. Paolo Galantini
Regional referent of the Group of Gold Medals for Military Valor of Italy for Liguria