General Portolano: in Afghanistan Italian Soldiers Operated on the Front Line

When Donald Trump reignited the controversy by claiming that NATO's European military in Afghanistan “were not on the front lines,” the strongest reply could not be a catchy phrase. It had to be a fact. The Chief of Defense Staff, Luciano Portolano responded like this: with the memory of someone who was truly there, and with indisputable numbers. “When I read those statements… a reaction of surprise,” he said, recalling that the Italian commitment has always been full, recognized by allies, and paid at a very high price.

And above all: in Afghanistan, under his command, he lost nine men. Nine faces, nine families, nine absences that a commander never files away.

Afghanistan: Portolano in command of the “Sassari” Brigade, Italy's warrior heart

There is a detail that weighs more than a thousand comments: during that period, Portolano was the commander of the “Sassari” Brigade, and simultaneously led the Regional Command West of the ISAF mission, based in Herat.
The “Sassari” is not a label: it is identity, cohesion, hard discipline, Esprit de Corps. It is the kind of unit that, when the situation becomes dangerous, does not ask for shortcuts: it becomes a Paris Force.

And in that area, “safe” was nothing. Portolano states it clearly: attacks, ambushes, bombings. He also recalls the attack on November 3, 2011, on the Hesco logistics compound, citing it as clear evidence that it was not at all a sector far from clashes.

“We were not in the rear”: the reality of Herat

During his tenure, he explains, about 14,000 soldiers from various international contingents operated in the Regional Command West, with about 4,500 Italians. And Italy was not just watching: it was within the responsibility, within the complexity, within the risk.
In an emblematic passage of those days, a journalistic report portrays Portolano as the one who reconstructs the attack on Herat, as commander of the “Sassari” Brigade and RC-West: not an external witness, but the commander on the spot, in the decision-making chain, with real pressure on him.

Portolano recalls that in the twenty years of the mission in Afghanistan (2001–2021) Italy counted 53 fallen and about 700 wounded, many with permanent disabilities.
But the figure that makes everything more human — and harder — is the one he pronounces as a commander: the nine of his period. “It was a great pain… boys with whom I had a very close relationship and always open dialogue.”

This is where you see the difference between a “desk” General and a True General. In the fact that for him the word “fallen” is not a chapter of military history: it is a reality lived on his own skin.

A True General, because he carried the front line on him

Portolano does not respond to controversies with abstract pride. He responds with substance: missions, responsibilities, men, losses. And with a firm point that needs no emphasis: Afghanistan was not a comfortable tale, and those who reduce it to a caricature betray the reality of those who operated in extreme conditions.

From the Balkans to Afghanistan, passing through Lebanon, Portolano embodies a rare type of command: one that does not just represent, but fully assumes the hardest part of the job. In Afghanistan, with the “Sassari”, that command had the face of the front line. And the voice, today, has the severe and necessary tone of truth.