During my tour, there was a lot of anti-US military stuff going on in Rome. Red Brigades group, if I remember correctly. They enjoyed pulling cobblestones from the streets and throwing them, then after a short clash with the local police, disappearing.
A decade later I was stationed in England, and taking classes through the U of Md. One of my instructors had a very interesting background. He was studying for a Doctorate at one of the Oxford University colleges, and teaching at U of Md to pay the bills. He was a former US Army CPT, a specialist in intel/counter intel, and had been stationed in Rome at the time I was there. He had been undercover pretending to be an ex-pat war protester and was an insider/instigator in the Rome rioting. He claimed to have tossed more than a few cobblestones! All the while, he was reporting intel back to the army.
I have to tell you about my experience in Milan back in the mid-nineties. I was walking by the recently renovated opera house, LaScala, and all of the sudden I was in a sea of leftwing loons, with red banners, communist flags, and a lot of noise. Here I was, a Reagan Conservative Republican, rubbing shoulders with a bunch of irrational, leftwing,il-duce wannabees. The media was there to cover the "event," and when the media left, the crowd dispersed. I guess that's what passes for a commie demonstration in the age of McLuhan.
Now THAT is an interesting anecdote. Fast-forward to today.... hmmmm.....