Fair Verona: 1957

In Veneto, the flat northeastern plain of Italy between the Alps and the Adriatic where once Caesar's armies stood guard, stands an outpost of the new U.S. Army. It is no sword-shield-and-visor legion of Caesar's hour; neither is it the sprawling sea of men and machines that fought the brutal battles of World War II. It is a unique organism, the Southern European Task Force--SETAF--whose job it is to support NATO's ground armies in that area. A tightly packed, well-trained band of about 6,000 men, SETAF comprises the U.S. Army's only operative atomic Missile Command in Europe.

In SETAF's hands rest the vital early weapons of the Atomic Age: the rocket Honest John and the guided missile Corporal; the vast, complicated network of control panels and radar screens and radio beams that will aim and fire the supersonic Corporal at an enemy perhaps 200 miles away; the surprisingly agile 30-ton missile-carrying trucks; the truck-bed cranes called "cherry pickers" and the devastating wallop itself: atomic warheads. Today's army, SETAF is armed and ready for tomorrow's atomic war.

Science in the Defiles. SETAF stakes its job in a three-point pattern. Headquarters, stationed in ancient Verona, and Task Forces Alfa and Bravo,* in Vicenza, are assigned to defend Italy's northeastern frontier (Austria and Yugoslavia); about 150 miles to the southwest, at the Italian port of Livorno, is Task Force Sierra, which supplies Alfa and Bravo with everything from carbines to carefully shrouded atomic warheads. If war comes, Alfa and Bravo can take aim on or fan out into the painstakingly mapped passes and defiles of the nearby Alps with astonishing mobility. With the 200,000-man NATO-commanded Italian army moving in to drive an oncoming enemy into a pocket, SETAF efficiently unlimbers its cranes, trucks and crews, loads its rockets and missiles, releases its wallop with discriminating accuracy.

But even an offensive force must stand ready for defensive action. Once SETAF has discharged its mighty power, it must move out fast, for the enemy can easily pinpoint the launching sites. Using planes and helicopters as well as mobile equipment, the task forces can shift from their firing position with remarkable speed.

Well-Organized Haste. SETAF's performance depends as much on its human muscle as it does on its scientific punch. SETAF's commanding officer, California-born Major General Harvey Fischer, is a barrel-chested West Pointer ('32) with a snappy mind and a faithful following. From the top brass down, that following is made up of controlled, hardened, carefully honed experts who have sheathed a commonplace soldier's training in the new technology.

Typical is a Memphis sergeant first class named William Kinney, 25, who studied missilery and electronics in Texas for 28 tough weeks, carries the customary carbine and 20-lb. pack, commands 35 men. The 14 specialists in his group who fire the supersonic Corporal are all familiar with one another's jobs, can get their hardware into the air in less than an hour after its delivery to their station, then disperse with their rumbling equipment in well-organized haste, set up again elsewhere for another shot.

Jeeps in the Marketplace. But all is not electronics and exercises. SETAF soldiers live amidst Italian antiquity with the usual string of post exchanges, movies, U.S.-run schools for some 1,200 children, rented apartments and villas, bathing and baseball. They nose their shiny olive sedans and drab jeeps through the tortuous streets of Shakespeare's "fair Verona," stroll near the battered walls of a ist century Roman amphitheater and through the twin-arched Porta dei Borsari (the Roman gateway). The bachelors hold hands with round-eyed Veronese in the shadow of the 13th century Casa di Giulietta, where, they are told, Romeo caught his first glimpse of Juliet. In the teeming marketplaces, American housewives and Italian G.I. brides (six SETAF-Italian marriages a month, 20 new babies) pinch the plump fruits and crisp vegetables grown on surrounding farms.

But ultimately, SETAF's eyes in the Veneto are trained on the gargantuan trucks and the explosive steel cigars. And so are the eyes of the Veneto Italians, who once before made way for other Americans. The Italians may not comprehend fully this futuristic army, but they understand what dangers lie to the north, and SETAF, with all its pushbuttons, seems pointed in the right direction.

* Meaning A and B--once Able and Baker--in the new international voice alphabet.

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