ITALY: Bersaglieri Without Bugles

Under a blazing sun, more than 15,000 Italian servicemen swung down Rome's Via dei Fori Imperiali one morning last week in celebration of the fourth anniversary of the Italian Republic. Romans missed the dash and color traditional with Italian soldiery. The cheers which had greeted the few mounted carabinieri and their red-plumed helmets died into shocked silence when the beloved Bersaglieri (sharpshooters) rode by in halftracks instead of trotting jauntily on foot to the tune of blaring bugles. An old woman watching the parade nodded her head toward Mussolini's old balcony on...