… On the morning of Oct. 25, about 20 Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force 12 scaled its slopes.
… SCTT-2 is one of four specialized Marine teams in Italy as part of a newly formed unit tasked with mentoring African militaries dealing with regional terror threats. Their time spent in between missions, leaders have stressed, doesn’t have to go to waste.
The hike was designed to teach the Marines a lesson in the rigors of operating in a mountainous environment. …
read more on dvids
Some packs were as heavy as 40kg (88lbs)
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This is all good. But I can’t think of the American military in Italy without fuming (again) over the Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998.
… The disaster, which led to the death of 20 people, occurred when a U.S. military plane cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway. …
The victims’ families got money but not much else. Another sorry episode in American military history.
It’s also known as the Strage del Cermis (“Massacre of Cermis”).
besthike.com 
“The victims’ families got money but not much else.”
Well we didn’t exactly have the technology to bring the people back to life. The families didn’t want justice, they wanted vengeance. It’s not like Italy is the poster child for justice anyway. And I’m sure the families got more than those of the 43 people who were killed in 1976 on the same system due to operator negligence.
This incident was surely a black eye for the US. But it is unfortunate that this is what pops into some people’s heads when they think of the US military in Italy instead of the 119,000+ US soldiers who sacrificed their lives during WW2 in Italy during the liberation of Europe. I guess it all depends on your perspective and personal biases.