Probably, not all of us know that in Kosovo the american Army used the bullets already used in the Gulf War, made of impoverished uranium. The bullets, which codice name is Pgu-14, had the particolarity to be completely made of uranium 238 or Du (Deploted uranium). Du is a heavy metal (19 grams/cm3), a machine shop rejection of the processing of radio-active metals used in nuclear power stations and in war-heads.

Uranium is a fire beetle metal, which meant that it burst into flames simply by the exposure to the air. The particles of uranium that burn are so little, that in normal conditions this effect is measurable only with refined scientific instruments. The great speed (of the bullets) made a friction that causes a rapid and "visible" combustion, which leads to about 400 degrees the temperatures of the bullets, that explode to the impact with a hard surface turning out a perforation even in very resistant materials.

The explosion transforms the bullets in a very fine powder of uranium monoxide that scatters in the air. The inhalation of such particles is very dangerous, because they being pottery for the high temperature caused by the explosion; and the pottery is insoluble.

Such particles, settled in the body, have sufficient energy to "break the DNA of the cell that they strike, transforming it in tumour. The ammunition with impoverished uranium was used for the first time during the Gulf War. It is strongly under suspiction, maintained by many associations of veterans, that the obscure desease known as "Gulf Syndrome", that hurt thousands of soldiers, was caused just by the use of impoverished uranium bullets.

In the article published by the "New Sardinia" of 10/10/99, the families of Salvatore Vacca and Giuseppe Pintus express the suspiction that the Army used radioactive material, or few soldiers took part, directly or indirectly, in missions where it should verified radioactive leaks. The deceases of these two young soldiers should be, unfortunately, the beginning of a long series, because also the Kosovo, because of the use of such bullets, is saturated with radioactivity.

Finally, it is useful to know that RAI broadcasted only this year extracts from the documentary "The Syndrome of Gulf", shot some years ago in the USA by the director Giuseppe D'Onofrio, in which it was emphasized the effects of uranium bullets and of bacteriological arms on the american soldiers, during the war. Are we in the presence of another hypocritical silence, as the case of Ustica taught us?

NUXIS. Five months of tests and blood samples from a hospital to another for a disorder of the thyroid, then a hopeless diagnosis: acute leukaemia. The Corporal Salvatore Vacca, 23 years old, born in Nuxis, left as volunteer to Sarajevo with the Brigade Sassari in November, 1998, die last Thursday after a long agony. But his parents do not resign themselves to such a tragedy, and foretell a judicial initiative to ascertain the cause of their son's death. His family has a dreadful doubt: why the diagnosis was not given at once? And then, what is really happened during the mission in Bosnia? In the meantime, last saturday, in Nuxis, the funeral of the young soldier took place. There was the guard of honor of the Brigade Sassari, and there was, absolutely incredulous, all people of Nuxis.

The campaign in Sarajevo for Salvatore Vacca begins last November. When the boy, a strong man whose weight was 78 kilograms and his height one metre and eighty centimetres, left Italy to the mission in Bosnia, was healty and in the height of his powers. In April he came back home for a short leave of six days, and showed the symptoms of a mysterious illness.

"He went off feverish, he was completely wet for an excessive perspiring, he trembled and was not able to stand - as his girl-friend Daniela recalls - somebody, before he left the unit, made him an injection of "Plasil". After that, he drank water and ate ecxcessively".

"We went with him to the duty doctor - adds his father, Giuseppe, retired warrant-officer of Italian police force (which is a branch of the army) - and he suggested a more careful checkup." It was the first signal that something was not right: Salvatore went to the first aid, in the hospital S. Giovanni di Dio, in Cagliari. The diagnosis was: stress and hyperthyroidism. In the meantime, the leave of Salvatore finished, and the day of the return to Sarajevo, he regularly attended to the barracks in Cagliari, but in precarious conditions of health. "It was strange - says the sister of Salvatore, Caterina - my brother's elders informed him that there was a mistake, the rest of the company was already left, and Salvatore, with nine companions, remained there. The day after, during the ceremony of hoisiting the flag, my brother was suddenly taken ill and felt down, was succourred and hospitalized".

It is the beginning of the odyssey. The soldier was led to the military hospital in Cagliari, "where his conditions - say his family - were underestimated". "The boy - add Salvatore's mother - continued wasting away: he felt nauseous, had diarrhoea and the fever was always high; he suffered from tachycardia. We decided to go with him to the clinic Aresu. And still they told us about hyperthyroidism, and gave him others medicines for cardiac disorders; meanwhile, Salvatore complained for difficulties of respiration, block of the kidneys and hepatic decompensation". "After 30 days of hospitalizing - says Salvatore's sister, Claudia - he was back, as he finished the convalescence, in the unit in Cagliari. No one listen to us. We thought that Salvatore could handled toxic substances. And there was the explosion of a aeroplane just near him. It still could bring radioactive materials". In the meantime, Salvatore got worse, and the 2nd August, his parents decide to go to Saragozza, for a medical consult. The response was dramatic and hopeless: acute leukaemia. Salvatore die after 15 days.

"They treated him for months as suffering from a disorder of the thyroid, they took lots of blood samples, and only after the terrible diagnosis arrived from Spain - the family of Salvatore claimed - they sent him to Oncology. Now we ask for justice."

SASSARI. "It is difficult, even impossible, to connect the death of the Corporal Salvatore Vacca, die from an acute form or leukaemia, with the military service he made in Bosnia with the members of the Multinational Brigade for Peace, which controls the North zone of Sarajevo, and which comprised also the soldiers of the regiment n.1510 of the Brigade Sassari". These words are said from the summit powers of the Brigade Sassari, that yesterday afternoon, even at the time, they did not know in detail the "accusations" of Salvatore Vacca's family. That day, they met the journalists to renew in public their grief to the young soldier's family, and explained that the members of the Brigade Sassari were not lay themselves open to any danger, except for the classical situatuions that soldiers in mission of peace are used to face.

It was the director of the military hospital of Cagliari, the Colonel Antonio Bianco, to tell, case sheets in the hand, the course of treatment of Salvatore's illness, that killed him. "The Corporal was back from Bosnia for a leave, and when he went to the barracks, he claimed some disturbances - he explained. - Our tests ascertained a cardiac disturbance and a form of hyperthyroidism, a diagnosis confirmed by the doctors of the San Giovanni di Dio, a hospital best equipped for such deseases. From the 3rd of August, Salvatore was convalenscing; the 16th, August, it was foreseen a checkup, at the hospital San Giovanni di Dio. It was just during this test that the illness was diagnosed".

To kill Salvatore Vacca was a bronchopulmonary complication, a frequent infection in this pathology, a form of leukaemia quite rare for young people in the age of Salvatore, seeing that, according the statistics, it hits children and adoloscents.

"We were close to the boy and his family - said the commander of the Brigade Sassari, the General Giuseppe Sabatellli - and more than a houndred and a half of our soldiers offered themselves to give Salvatore their blood".

During the very short military intervention in Bosnia by NATO forces, NATO used the "A-10" aeroplanes, the bombers antitank that shoot, with their light guns of 30mm, 4,200 shots in a minute. Bullets made with impoverished uranium.