Sat 18 January at 11 - Collegio Cairoli
Franco Bettolini and Marina Crescenti "Post 23. My 100 days in Beirut" - Introduced by Bruna Zanoni

A conscript and a war scene, Lebanon 1983: for the first time after World War II an Italian unit was sent across national borders. Franco Bettolini, protagonist of that operation, at the age of 19 landed with his «brothers» bersaglieri in Beirut, now a ghost town: only refugee camps, misery and despair, danger of death at every corner and at every moment. The mission, composed of about 1,500 men from different departments, is under the command of Franco Angioni, general of paratroopers, then Knight of the Military Order. Thus began the peace mission «Lebanon 2» which will go down in history as one of the most successful military operations in the Middle East. The young Bettolini tells in "Post 23", thanks to the always direct writing of Marina Crescenti, his military training between mud and fatigue, the horror of war, the unarmed population, women and children who are linked to the Italian contingent capable of showing firmness and humanity at the same time. He recounts his experience as a young soldier at the front, his comrades, fears and horrors, human gestures and military strategies. And he does so starting from his small reality of Binasco, the friends of the bar and the family; the barely veiled apprehensions of his mother and the leading role of his father; the strong relationship with his sister and the values that the terrible military experience in Lebanon has transmitted him anyway. Preface by Franco Angioni.