Costa Concordia's tale of two captains: the 'hero' and the 'coward'

Italy is enthralled by two captains involved with the Costa Concordia. Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco is a hero to many. Capt. Francesco Schettino, not so much.

|
(AP Photo/Giacomo Aprili)
Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco ordered the Costa Concordia captain, who had abandoned the ship to get back on board to oversee the evacuation.

The Coast Guard officer who ordered the captain of the capsized Italian cruise ship to go back aboard unwittingly became an instant hero on Wednesday, credited with saving the national honor on one of its darkest nights.

Italy has become enthralled with the tale of two captains.

One is Coast Guard Captain Gregorio De Falco, who furiously ordered the skipper of the Costa Concordia to return to his ship and oversee the rescue operations.

The other is Captain Francesco Schettino - whom newspapers have branded a coward for fleeing in the face of adversity and who is now under house arrest, accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Go on board (Expletive!)" De Falco yelled at Schettino during a 4-minute radio exchange made public on Tuesday.

The Italian word De Falco used, "cazzo" in Italian, is slang for the male sexual organ but it is commonly used to emphasize something, equivalent to "Go on board, damn it."

The imperative phrase in Italian -- "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" -- was already on T-shirts by Wednesday morning.

"Thank You, Captain" was the more sedate headline the country's largest national newspaper, Corriere della Sera, chose on Wednesday, reflecting the gratitude of Italians who see Schettino's behavior as a national embarrassment.

"Two men ... two stories, one who humiliates us, the other who redeems. Thank you Captain De Falco, our country badly needs people like you," the Corriere della Sera said.

Another memorable exchange between the two captains, listened to by millions of Italians since it was made public, is when De Falco tells Schettino:

"You get back on board! That is an order! There is nothing else for you to consider. You have sounded the "Abandon Ship." I am giving the orders now. Get back on board. Is that clear?"

The new "Italian idol" is an unlikely one.

De Falco is 48. He is balding and, in uniform, looks more like the maitre d' of an exclusive restaurant on the Amalfi Coast than a swashbuckling heartthrob.

"I'm no hero," De Falco told reporters on Wednesday as he entered a magistrate's office in the Tuscan city of Grosseto to give testimony for the investigation.

Judging by the comments on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, Italians, living in a country many feel is mired in corruption and economic woe, would beg to disagree.

A tweet from Sofia Rosada said: "It is men like De Falco who should be governing. Instead we are full of men like Schettino."

Some have even played on the Jesus Christ-Judas Iscariot, one a savior, the other a traitor.

Judging from reports that De Falco is usually soft-spoken, unassuming, and even shy - when he is not faced with a shipwreck - he would likely reject the acclamation of instant sainthood.

But he may be moved by a tweet from and Italian boy named Salvatore Garzillo: "The next time someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up I am going to say: 'a man like De Falco.'"

(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene in Grosseto)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Costa Concordia's tale of two captains: the 'hero' and the 'coward'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0118/Costa-Concordia-s-tale-of-two-captains-the-hero-and-the-coward
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe