The National Alpine Association will return to the auditorium of Marengo to present the book ”Sul cappello” and sing two songs. The announcement was spread by the Alpini members of the sections of Alessandria, Acqui Terme, Asti and Casale Monferrato gathered yesterday in Marengo to outline the future of the association.
“On the hat that we wear there is a long black pen”: the overture to the famous song sung by the choir of Alpini can induce the eye to observe the detail and the thought to find the lost affinities. The thirty- centimetre black crow feather stopped by the tassel to the green felt hat indicates the troops; brown eagle feather to identify petty officers and lower officers; white goose feather to define superior and general officers.
It is possible to see this chromatic pluralism also on the panache fixed to the big cylindrical headdress or to the cocked hat worn by the officers enrolled in the groups of reenactors already gathered in Marengo to move past pills from the history book to the ceremonies.
The analogy emerges also from the vicissitudes of soldiers forced to challenge the ice to cross the mountain ranges: the mule, bizarre and virtuous packhorse, was the only carrier on the mountain ranges conquered by the Alpine from 1915 to 1918.
This ”four-legged conscript”, suitable for walking on mule tracks torn by avalanches, is praised by legend for the effective support provided to the French troops to climb the Alpine pass of Gran San Bernardo: the transit was nodal to access the Po Valley and subtract northern Italy from the Holy Roman Empire.
So in Marengo: a site already dedicated to the impetuous history and today aimed at a serene dialogue essential to transmit awareness to individuals and promote peace.
The call to cooperate for peace also emerges from the sentences uttered by the councillor Maurizio Sciaudone (delegate to the Marengo pole from the Province of Alessandria) to the assembly set up by the Alpini. ” To passive nostalgia – says Sciaudone – I prefer more active and future-oriented memory. I find many obstacles in the way of commemorating our heroes and the victims. I thank you for being here in Marengo at the service of the community”.