Reflections of a stormy petrel

A couple of years ago, during Britain’s Remembrance Day week-end, I met a very old gentleman helping to sell remembrance poppies, wearing the usual British Legion blazer and beret, with a string of campaign medals a yard long. I noticed that one of the campaign medals had a red, white and green tag, and asked. It turned out that he had fought the whole of WWII from 1939 to 1945, and all of it on the Italian front, first in North Africa, then in Italy, and that he had been in Rome on June 6, 1944. I wonder whether he ever expected, when he was sent to war against Italy long ago, that one day an Italian citizen would salute him, shake his hand and thank him for helping to set my father’s city and my country free.