Today, May 13, is the 75th anniversary of the Allied bombardment of Fidenza, which pretty much destroyed the center of town (it was a significant rail hub) and must have killed any number of civilians. There were no parades of vintage military vehicles and no one showed up dressed up as G.I. Joes and Janes. Instead the occasion was marked only with a rosary in memory of the victims and an afternoon mass. (Church and state are not separate in Italy.)
The announcement notes that this anniversary "reminds us that war does not distinguish between friends and enemies, the guilty and the innocent, but strikes all indiscriminately." I read this as an implicit rebuke of those who idealize the swaggering bellicosity of Mussolini and of others of his ilk, then and now.
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