Events taking place at Spain's National Day with the slogan "Proud of Being Spanish" ("Orgullosos de ser españoles" in Spanish)

12th of October Parade, Spain's National Day, will have the slogan "Proud of Being Spanish" as a result of a campaign carried out by the Ministry of Defense, being an open day celebrated in many Units too. As new innovation, the Parade will change its location and it will have as central place the so-called "Plaza de Lima" in Madrid, in order to give more visibility to the events.

That is what has been announced today by the Chief of Defence Staff (JEMAD in Spanish), General of the Spanish Army, Fernando Alejandre; accompanied by the Chief of the JEMAD's Technical Departament, General Juan F. Díaz; and the director of the Ministry of Defense's Communication Office, Isabel Gil.

The events, as they have been explained, will start at 11:00am with the arrival of Their Majesties of Spain at Plaza de Cuzco. Later, military honors will be performed and, after a parachuting jump, the hosting of and tribute to the Spanish Flag will be fulfilled too. 

Subsequently, an air-mobile Parade will be developed, with the participation of 78 airplanes, from which 12 of them are helicopters from the Army's air-mobile forces. The land Parade will start at Plaza de Castilla and will end in Plaza de San Juán de La Cruz. 84 vehicles and 3900 units on foot will participate on it. The procession will be opened by the motorised column, incorporating afterwards the personnel on foot and, finally, the units on horseback. 

A subject-matter Parade

The objective, as it has been announced, consists on performing a subject-matter Parade in order to put Spanish people closer to the missions in which
the military soldiers get involved abroad.

For that, it will participate an operative patrol with supporting units in Afganistan and Iraq, and a ligh operative patrol with supporting units in Mali and
Lebanon. Other units such as a motorised unit from the Navy, another representative one of the Atlanta mission and a Civil Guard patrol together with an Emergency Military Unit,
will also take part in this event.

As novelty, National Police's units will be part of the Parade, being their first time since the 80s that they can participate on this march. 120 French gendarmes instructed by the Civil War and participating in an exchange, will join to the events too. A complete company formed by the Common Corps of the Central Defense Academy will accompany them as well.

Another innovation for this year consists on the participation of a commemorative unit for the "Camino Español" 450th anniversary, that will be performed with customes and weapons belonging to that time.

Hightlighed Lebanon Presence

The Lebanese Flag will be placed in a highlighted area; decision taken by the minister of Defense María Dolores de Cospedal, in order to thank the solidarity showed by the Lebanese Army to the victims of the terrorist attacks that took place in Barcelona and Cambrils when the Lebanese Army decided to host the Spanish and Lebanese Flags together in the mountain, after recovering part of the territory taken by Daesh (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham).

Supporting the victims of the terrorists' attacks

Defence has given this year an important role to the victims of terrorism in a tribute to those who gave their lifes for Spain, paying tribute to the civil victims of terrorism too.

This way, victims' deceased people from the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils will be present, and in their representation, victims' associations will take part in the tribute, together with nine ambassadors from the countries that regreted the mortal victims of the attacks.

It will be performed another special tribute to the Spanish Ignacio Echeverría, who died in a terrorist attack in London as he was trying to help another person. The family of the deceased will join to this event as well.

In a parallel way to the central act in Madrid, 112 events will be developed, being distributed throughout all the Spanish geography in order to commemorate the 12th of October, Spain's National Day.