When Power Makes You Dull and Dumb

Military experience, what used to be compulsory military service, has taught generations of Italians not so much how to shoot, which fortunately there has been little need since the end of the second world war, but to understand the stupidity of many human behaviours linked to a hierarchical power system.

One morning I was on duty cleaning the dormitory and a fellow soldier told me that at eleven o’clock the captain would come by for a surprise inspection.

The night before a large bucket full of cold water was emptied on a young sleeping rookie, wetting him and the mattress. The fellow older soldier advised me to make sure that the captain did not notice what had happened and did not see the wet mattress.

After I set up all the camp beds, I folded the soaked mattress in half, like all the others, put the wet blanket in the middle and covered everything with a dry blanket. It seemed to be a new mattress, a so called “cold cube”.

At eleven o’clock, punctually, the captain arrived and walked up and down the dormitory making his inspection. He found everything in perfect order, with the exception of a drop of water on the floor which had fallen from the wet mattress.

“What is that?” – he asked

Not knowing what excuse to make, I told him the truth. He got terribly angry, silenced me and ordered to throw the mattress out of the window, then to go out to fetch it and put it on the grass, in the sunshine to dry. So I did.

While I was out, laying the mattress and blanket on the grass, the captain left, and another captain came in, He was wearing sportswear and said he was waiting for a colleague with whom he had to play a tennis match. He looked at what I was doing and said:

“Soldier, what are these things doing here! Take them away, put them immediately in the dormitory, a very important visitor is coming!

I didn’t have time to explain the order that had been given to me some minutes before. He harshly warned me not to disobey his orders.

“Yes, sir!” – I replied.

I took the blanket and the mattress, approached the window and threw them inside. I went into the dormitory, and while I was arranging them on the bunk again, I heard footsteps behind me and turned around. It was the first captain, who, on seeing me, opened his eyes like an owl and became furious, thinking I had not obeyed his order.

I explained to him that one of his peers had ordered me to put everything inside, because he was waiting someone important, with whom he had to play tennis. Of course he would not listen to reason.

“Don’t question my orders!” he thundered. “Your behaviour costs you fifteen days in the barracks jail! Obey immediately and put mattress and blanket to dry in the sunshine, as I ordered you!”

I threw everything out of the window again. From the tennis court, the second captain, seeing the things on the lawn again, left the game, walked towards me and shouting, he too gave me another fifteen days too.

“Perfect”, I thought, “thirty days in one go for doing exactly what I was ordered to do!”

Continuing to obey, shortly afterwards the blanket and mattress were back on the cot.

That day was a very tiring day, both physically and morally, because complying with two exactly opposite instructions given with such blind anger is a very unpleasant experience.

If you add to that the thirty days in the barracks jail for disobedience, you can understand how I felt.

I hope that those two captains were an exception, because if the responsibility for defending the homeland were really entrusted to people like those two captains, poor Italy!