In Memory of Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Caforio In Memory of (Brig. Gen., ret.), 1935-2015

A memoriam in his honour by Prof. Marina Nuciari

When in the first week of August last the unbelievable news came that our friend and colleague Giuseppe Caforio had suddenly passed away, I was engaged in finishing a paper for one of the many editorial projects that Giuseppe was leading, and I knew he was waiting for it to be completed within a few days. He was healthy and active, as always occupied with myriad research plans – and as usual somewhat worried about our deadlines! Now all of us who were closest and dearest to him, together with so many friends and colleagues in the global community of practicing social scientists in the military field, are trying to elaborate our own personal memories of Giuseppe in remembrance of his personality and accomplishments.

Giuseppe Caforio, born on 21 June 1935, served in the Italian Army from his admission to the Military Academy in 1954 until he retired in 1992 as Brigadier General. His officer career did not prevent him from earning three degrees, in law (1966), political science (1984) and strategic studies (2002) in three different universities, sure signs of his never-ending curiosity and willingness to acquire deeper knowledge, better grasp social phenomena and processes, and change them if and when necessary. Ever since the early years of his military career, his free spirit and critical mind had prompted him to study military realities by means of social science disciplines, and he soon began to impress upon his comrades in arms the need for empirical research within the Italian armed forces. When in 1983 I first met him (in Madrid, where Rafael Bañon Martinez had invited European social scientists to a Mediterranean Studies Conference on Armed Forces and Society), he told me about his plans to help forge links between the military and the academic social science community in order to promote social research within the defence establishment.

From then on, Giuseppe began to participate in myriad meetings and conferences at home and abroad. He soon served as Deputy Chair of the Centro Interuniversitario di Studi Storico-Militari (1984), as founding member of ERGOMAS (1986) and then as ERGOMAS board member and coordinator of the Working Group on the Military Profession. In 1988, he became a fellow of the then Chicago-based Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society, and of the International Sociological Association’s research committee on armed forces and conflict resolution (RC01, of which he was elected and re-elected Chair until 2010). The last thirty years of his life course (and even more so after his retirement) saw him turn his prolific activity in the field of military sociology at an international level into a meaningful second career, organizing more than ten international conferences and presenting papers (with his inimitable Italian English accent and typical sense of humour) in more than one hundred seminars, congresses and conferences.

He is credited with an impressive record of more than 160 publications (books, journal articles, essays, chapters in edited volumes), many of which have been translated into no fewer than nine different languages, as he proudly wrote in his constantly updated curriculum vitae. Many of us had a part in one or more of the many research projects promoted and coordinated by Giuseppe, have published something somewhere in great big handbooks under his editorship, and are grateful to him for his incredible ability to organize, lead, support research projects, and generally show great care and concern for the publication and the dissemination of research findings across and even beyond the international social science community. Among his last projects figured a substantial collaboration with Res Militaris, and he was already collecting papers for a special issue, thus strengthening the budding partnership between Res Militaris and ERGOMAS – notably with the Working Group on the Military Profession which he initiated and coordinated until his dying day. But Giuseppe was not only a scholar devoted to military sociology, not only a research leader and a wise practical organizer. He was a fine intellectual, enjoying good literature, art and music – a cultured person, curious of and open to past masterpieces and new, ground-breaking works of art alike. Visiting a new city or a museum with him was always an enlightening experience.

Giuseppe was a true gentleman and a dear and loyal friend. He was a superb travel mate, too ! He liked to travel the world in a way that led him once to say, speaking of himself and his wife Donatella, “we are not tourists, we are travellers”. He could not have said it better : he travelled through his life as if on a continuous trip bound to some new and unknown place, anxious to grasp new spirits, always curious of new inspirations, never tired, never afraid.

Farewell, Giuseppe, have a nice journey!
Marina Nuciari