Somalia, 1992. A little girl in Merca, south of Mogadishu, is injured in a fire fight between two indigenous factions.
"We were on a reconnaissance flight. We were hijacked for rescue. I saw a little girl on the ground. She was stained with blood and was moaning. Beside her, the desperate mother. She looked me in the eyes, took the little girl and gave her to me. . I felt as if his life was in my hands. "
Those hands belonged to Vincenzo Iozzi, then 23, a flight operator of the Navy, who today holds the Italian record for flying hours, over 6,000.
"With the baby in my arms, I ran to the helicopter.
At the Mogadishu airport I gave it to the doctors who extracted two bullets from her.
He was saved only thanks to our timely intervention.
I always carry that memory with me, as if that little girl had been my daughter. "The story of Vincenzo Iozzi - and that of a hundred colleagues - is collected in a book, just out, signed by the journalist Anita Fiaschetti, published by Navy: "We are the Navy.
Stories of men and women of the Navy. "A collection of moments of life made of humanity and service, rigor and sacrifice, at sea, in the sky and on land.
Pride for the uniform and love for the sea, the common denominator of many sailors.
As for Marta Pratellesi, now the first female commander of ship 'Galatea', but with a dream: to command the 'Vespucci' would be "an immense satisfaction for a female officer" (in a world where, by tradition, even the name of the ships is always and in any case declined in the masculine).
"Ours - says Federica Rametta, first female helmsman of the 'Vespucci' - is not just a job. It is knowing how to stay away and alone, putting up with and living with others. It is not just knowing how to sail, but knowing how to live".
Among the missions of the Navy, the rescue of migrants at sea.
Here, too, memories are associated with faces, pain, hopes.
"It hurt - says first marshal Tullio Mameli, 54, hangar chief - to see children, like the dead in the water: I cried many times. I should be colder but I can't do it".
The electrician and diver Davide Cimino, silver medal for military valor for rescues in 2015, remembers the many people saved but also those who didn't make it: "My medal is for them. It is not easy to forget the faces of whom you met in the middle of the sea. When they see you coming, their eyes are filled with joy ".
Memories also from the mainland.
As from the post-earthquake in San Giuliano, where a hyperbaric chamber had been placed "and where - says the diver Dino Marco Vanni - we gave oxygen therapy treatments to a child who had had his legs crushed, in the opinion of many to be amputated. months, his legs began to heal. Today that little boy graduated in engineering and wanted some of us on graduation day. "
Of the operations abroad Giovanni Ruffino, doctor, testifies to hardships but not only: "The missions mark you. For months you live in tents, you share everything, from food to the cold, to fears. But the missions are not just difficult moments, they are also stories of friendship. The experience with the raiders remains the most beautiful and adventurous: they are really my family ".
