*Been rather busy writing fiction lately. I've enjoyed it. I plan to do a lot more.
*Here comes the new year, though, and it's back to the writer's-notebook aspects of BEYOND THE BEYOND. Get this: it's World War One. After many titanic massacres in ghastly frozen mountain landscapes, the Kingdom of Italy is finally breaking and permanently destroying its worst and most bitterly resented national enemy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The climactic battle is at hand: the Vittorio Veneto offensive.
*Then the Americans show up. Yes, Americans are Over There. On the bloodstained front, with their allies, the Italians. And what do these American doughboys do in Italy? They deceive the enemy by walking around in many different beautiful uniforms.
http://www.worldwar1.com/itafront/dbsitaly.htm
"The Yanks Come to the Italian Front
"The 332nd Infantry Regiment, 83rd Division, with attached medical and supply units, was sent to the Italian front in July 1918 in response to urgent requests from the Italian Government. Its principal missions were to build up Italian morale and to depress that of the enemy by creating the impression that a large force of Americans had reached that front and was preparing to enter the battle line and to take an active part in the fighting.
"The regiment was first stationed near Lake Garda, where it trained in methods of warfare suitable for the difficult mountain terrain which comprised the greater part of the Italian theater of operations. Early in October it moved to Treviso, behind the Piave River Front, where it was assigned to the Italian 31st Division. From there, for purposes deceiving the enemy, it staged a series of marches in which each battalion, with different articles of uniform and equipment, left the city by a separate road, circulated during daylight hours in exposed positions for both the Italians and Austrians to see, and returned after nightfall to its station at Treviso in as inconspicuous a manner as possible."
(((So that's what the Americans were doing in the awesome bloodletting on the Italian front: walking around playing dress-up where they were sure to be seen. There's a kind of genius to this strategy. Obviously the fighting 332nd had immediately gone native. They must've been the most Italianized American military unit to date, short the many Italian regiments who fought in the American Civil War (on both sides). Furthermore, one can't doubt that this was by far the most militarily effective use of one meager American regiment. Make them look like a hundred regiments, and try to make sure nobody shoots at them.)))
(((Not their fault, mind you – these wartime impostors were as keen to kick ass any other Yankee unit in the Great War.)))
"Early on November 4th the 2nd Battalion crossed the river on a narrow footbridge and after a brief struggle captured the Austrian position on the far side. Continuing to move forward along the Treviso-Udine railroad, the 2nd Battalion occupied the town of Codroipo where it took possession of large stores of munitions and supplies. In this, their only offensive operation, the 332nd Infantry had one man killed and four wounded. At 3:00pm, November 4th, when the armistice between Italy and Austria-Hungary became effective, the leading American elements were at Villorba."
(((One man killed. Well, this guy, whoever he was, fell just as hard and turned just as cold as the fallen legions at Verdun.)))
(((That wasn't the only American contribution to the Italian war effort.)))
"... 54 airplane pilots also served with the Italian Army. The American pilots, as members of Italian bombardment squadrons, engaged in bombing raids behind the Austrian lines, being especially active during the progress of the Vittorio-Veneto offensive."
(((That was the future, right there. Semi-legal, more or less covert American aviators in somebody else's uniform blowing people up from the sky. Lafayette Escadrille, Flying Tigers, and guys in Florida at consoles running CIA killer drones in Pakistan. They just keep switching uniforms, folks.)))
(((In 2010, I saw the New Year in on the vast stony cobbles of the "Piazza Vittorio Veneto.")))
