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Now I'll show you how an Italian dies!
Fabrizio Quattrocchi. May 9, 1968 April 14, 2004.They showed the hostages on video, and threatened to kill them if their demands were not met. To demonstrate they were serious, they took Quattrocchi to a field, and had him dig a large hole. They then put a hood over his head and forced him to kneel by the grave, preparing to murder him. But Fabrizio did not cooperate. He stood and tried to pull off the hood, shouting, "Now I'll show you how an Italian dies!" The terrorists shot him in the back of the neck I was reminded of the story of William Logan Crittenden, of the Kentucky Crittendens, a West Point graduate and Mexican War veteran. He went to Cuba in 1851 with Spanish General Narciso Lopez to try to foment revolution. Things went terribly wrong, and Crittenden found himself with 50 other Americans standing bound beneath the walls of Castle Atares in Havana, awaiting execution. They were taken before the firing squad in groups of ten. Crittenden led the second group. Spanish custom at the time was to have the condemned kneel with their backs to the executioners. A Spanish officer ordered Crittenden to comply. "A Kentuckian never turns his back on an enemy," he said, "and kneels only to God." The Spanish struck his legs with their rifle butts, forcing the young American down and turning him, but before they could fire he stood and faced his killers. A bullet hit Crittenden above his nose, tearing his head open. Shortly before he went to meet his fate he had written to his uncle, John Jordan Crittenden, then the US Attorney General, "I will die like a man." He did. The enemy we face today would have to rise far to earn even our contempt. Fabrizio's captors wanted not just to kill him, but to humiliate him, the true mark of the savage. However, they needed his cooperation, and Fabrizio knew it. He was beyond help, but not helpless. He was alive. He could still choose, if only to choose the manner in which he would die. Consider the bravery, the nobility, the strength of that act. In his final moments, facing eternity, willfully discarding the shred of hope that maybe it would not happen, maybe he would get out of it alive, shouting defiance in the masked faces of his captors and denying the barbarous cowards intent on murdering him the satisfaction of his complicity in their crime. Fabrizio Quattrocchi showed us how an Italian dies, and how a hero lives. Lest we forget. 3 year anniversary - and what a contrast to the incidents in Iran Posted by: OldSpook 2007-04-15 |
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