For those with the good fortune not to have attended a boarding school, the concept of bullying or "hazing" is a relative one. For many young Italians, called up to do their nine-month military service, however, it is all too real. For 26-year-old Emanuele Scieri, hazing may have played a part in his death.
Two weeks ago, Scieri was found dead, at the foot of a parachute drying tower at the barracks of Italy's elite Folgore paratroopers brigade in Pisa. He was found at around 2 p.m. on a Monday yet had been missing since the previous Friday when he missed a late-night roll call.
Scieri had done just one month of his military service before he was transferred to the Folgore barracks on August 13th. What happened on that day remains the matter of military and civil investigation. What seems clear is that late that night Scieri fell to his death from a height of approximately 20 feet while attempting to climb the drying tower.
Medical opinion suggests he may have been alive for eight hours after the fall and had help arrived promptly, might have survived.
The weekend of August 13th-16th is a traditional summer holiday high-point in Italy, marked by the Ferragosto national break on August 15th. The fact that many soldiers and officers were on leave partly explains why it took three days to find Scieri.
Inevitably, commentators speculated that the young graduate's death had come about because of some form of bullying or initiation rite. That theory was partly borne out by the fact that Scieri was found with one shoe off, with his shoelaces untied and with small cuts on his hands. All of these signs could mean he had been subjected to a test of strength in which he had been obliged to climb the wire ladder of the parachute tower using only his hands.
The problem about this case is that a section of public opinion is highly sceptical of both military service and the Folgore. Those who have done their own service (la naia) know bullying exists. The paratroopers have already been investigated on charges of cruelty, sexual abuse and serious misconduct during the 1993 UN mission to Somalia.
In 1998 a senior officer at the Pisa barracks was removed after two episodes in which a soldier was forced to drink urine and another ended up in hospital after being violently beaten. In March 1995, Andrea Oggiano, on military service with the Folgore, threw himself under a train in Sestre Levante. His family and friends claimed he had complained of being bullied and described his barracks as "hell".
In fairness to the elite Folgore, it must be pointed out that the brigade has comported itself bravely and well in war zones such as Bosnia.
However, nonnismo or bullying by the nonni (literally grandparents but in this case conscripts who have done two or three months more service than the newly arrived) is clearly alive and well in the Italian army. Nearly 300 formal complaints filed by recruits on a confidential hotline last year testify to the vitality of the ugly phenomenon.
Having hot wax poured over your back, being shut in a cupboard and told to sing, having your clothes doused in petrol and then set on fire, being forced to do sit-ups well beyond exhaustion point, being told to paint the grass green in mid-August or clean up the snow in mid-January are just some of the infinite variety of initiation rites, trials of strength and lessons in obedience imposed during military service.
Earlier this year Minister Scognamiglio announced that military service would be gradually phased out over the next five to six years.