Found some old pictures ...

I was actually going through some of my old army stuff here in the war room, and came across these pictures.  These were from a trip to Italy when I was a young captain.  I am not sure if the whole thing was classified in any way, but I know the reason we were there was pretty important at the time.

Anyway, here are some of the pictures. 

Believe it or not, when I was a young captain I actually did look like this.  That was about 60# ago.

This is the train station by the airport at Milan.  It would be fun to go back some day to see if much has changed.

When we landed in Italy, we really didn't know any of the language and relied on the old "point and guess" method to get from one place to another.  It worked out pretty well and the people accommodated us pretty well.

One interesting thing I did remember was seeing this "sign" for a 2nd floor "recruiting station" just across from our hotel.

One of the places we "visited" was the American base at Pisa.  After finishing our business, we were able to go see the Leaning Tower. 

This was pretty cool, and all the guys had fun climbing the steps.  One of our issues to think about was if we could get a radio antenna up there or up on the church roof next door.  As flat as the ground was there, we would certainly have had a tremendous range on communications from there.
 As we were heading back to the base, our driver asked us if we wanted to go to the beach.  None of us had the proper attire for the beach, but he said that wouldn't matter.  So off we went -- if only to stand in the sand and look around.  Little did we know what kind of beach this was going to be.

The side nearest to us is the "American" side.  Swimming suites required.  The far side of the dividing wall (the side with all the umbrellas -- and they are there for a reason) was the "European" side.  No swimming suites allowed -- in fact, pretty much no clothing at all allowed.

As you can see, it was pretty cold and windy there on the ocean.  No customers on either side.  One of the guys checked.

Then, we continued on with our "business" and came upon an old deserted collection of buildings.  This was called the Mussolini School for Boys.   You can Google this and find out more.  It was quite a layout.

 

I have to say, this was quite a trip.  I don't know what ever happened to our report, but we got to see some of the more historic sights this country had.  I will look around for more of the pictures, because we visited the Port of Livorno, Rome, a number of airports and sea ports (to include Venice), and a number of old fortresses.  We also spent time driving their roads.  I'll keep looking and see if I can find anything else.

The experience I gained at age 21 would be useful if I were ever 21 again. 

Hooah