It’s been 80 years since the storied 10th Mountain Division helped liberate Italy from fascism. This summer, a group of their descendants, including many Coloradans, returned to visit the places they helped free. Some carried a new worry: that their own country is now slipping into a fascist state.
The 10th Mountain Division holds a special place in Colorado history, as the elite division of Army troops that trained near Vail, not just to fight but to ski, rappel and survive in rugged terrain.
These soldiers are also still beloved deep in the Tuscan hill country, where a group of visiting 10th Mountain descendants were embraced by locals this fall.
At the top of Mount Belvedere, covered with a thick carpet of green trees, local mayor Barbara Franchi stood near a monument honoring the 10th’s role, and spoke to the nearly 100 American visitors whose family members captured the mountain from the Nazis in 1945.
“You are always welcome here,” she told them, “in this land that will never forget your father and grandfathers.”
“On this mountain, they wrote a page of history that belongs not only to America but also to Italy, to Europe, and to all free peoples,” she said.
She closed by saying she hopes their memory inspires more peace and togetherness in the future.
Down off the mountain, Mayor Franchi said she’s sad to see fascism creeping back into governments across the globe, including Italy’s.
“I think that the fascism is coming,” she said. “It means that humanity has fallen down and we have not learned about the past.”
Eighty years ago, the verdant region was ravaged by tanks and bombs. The Nazis massacred locals. Now, the tiny towns are quaint and serene, like Lizzano in Belvedere, one of many villages that welcomed the descendants, with a big American flag displayed in its shaded piazza.
Descendant Peggy Hall explained that she’s so scared for her country's future that at her home in Colorado, she’s flying her own American flag upside down.
“We are here because we believe in defending our freedoms,” Hall said.
Her father, William Parker, enlisted right out of high school, leaving his small Utah town to defend the liberty of a place thousands of miles away.
“My father — our fathers — fought against fascism, and we have a government, a presidency, that's trying to take our country to fascism,” she said.
Hall was sitting alongside her friend Rikki Swedhin, whose dad, Lloyd Swedhin, was in Italy as an Army postal clerk in 10th during the war. As the group of descendants traveled to battle sites and small towns nestled in the vibrantly green countryside, Swedhin said the Italians seemed to still understand and fear how threatening fascism is, even generations after it gripped the country.
“Americans don't understand. They're spoiled. They don't understand,” Swedhin said.
The Trump administration has long dismissed the fascist label as baseless and dangerous rhetoric by its opponents, but on this trip, many descendants of various political ideologies used the word.
Hall and Swedhin’s dads were both lifelong Republicans — and both women have voted Republican in the past, but not for years. They think this president is a threat to democracy ... and hope their fathers would, too.
“I think Dad would be, completely, based on what he went through in World War II, he'd be totally anti-fascist,” Swedhin said.
Both she and Hall are scared for America’s future. Hall is especially disturbed by American troops being deployed to U.S. cities. She sees it as troops being used against their own people.
“I never thought I would see that,” Hall said. “I don't care what political party you belong to; that is not something that should happen in our country.
But other descendants on the trip have different fears about America, including Ross Raney, who believes people using the word "fascism" don’t actually know what that means.
“The climate right now in the country is not in any way fascist,” he said, it was “more akin to pre-civil war.”
For him, it was important to come on this trip and see the places his grandfather, Roy Moore, did. Lizzano was the last town his grandpa described in his diary before being killed in the war. A conservative, Raney sees dangerous divisions in America and said the assassination of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk is proof.
“The correction to speech that you don't like is more speech, not killing the speaker. And that's where we're at and that scares the hell out of me,” he said.
To Raney, it’s not fascism for Trump to float ideas like seeking a third term or taking away guns from transgender people. Instead, it’s trolling.
And Raney doesn’t believe Americans would stand for their leader becoming a dictator.
“Whether it's from Trump or from Biden, the people would not have allowed a takeover of government, because we are the power,” he said.
After several days of touring battle sites and monuments, the descendants were celebrated by locals with a party in Vidiciatico, a village that had been almost completely destroyed in the war. They sat at long tables, sipping wine and chatting right next to a medieval bell tower that somehow survived the bombardment 80 years ago.
After they were serenaded by singers with ties to Italy’s military doing a rendition of “Amazing Grace,” they joyfully clapped, a few getting teary-eyed.
Mayor Franchi, who lives in a neighboring town, said she’s forever grateful for Americans’ help.
“They cross the ocean and they came here to save us and — this is very important — and we have to continue to maintain this memory.”
While she’s afraid of fascism around the world, she explained that she doesn’t know the state of politics in the United States.
“But I believe in America’s soul,” she said.
And she believes it’s forever linked to this place.
The 10th Returns
The 10th Mountain Division troops trained in the Colorado mountains and helped win WWII in 1945.
This story is part of a series that follows a group of their descendants who returned to Italy and retraced their steps.
