Medals awarded to Portugese soldiers for their maintentance work on the Spanish border

The Chief of the Army (JEME) gives a medal to one of the soldiers (Photo:Ángel Tejedor/DECET)

The Chief of the Army (JEME) with the medal bearers and other authorities (Photo:Ángel Tejedor/DECET)

Colonel José da Silva Rodrigues, head of the Portugese Army Geospatial Information Centre, Lieutenant Colonel Rui A. Ferreira Coelho, head of the Centre for Information Development and Management and Border Work project, and lieutenant Gabriel F. Sargento dos Santos, Training Section deputy, have been awarded a Cross of Military Merit for their work in their mission with the Spanish Army in the maintenance of land borders between Spain and Portugal. The medals were awarded today in an event chaired by the Chief of the Army, General Jaime Domínguez Buj, in the Buenavista Palace, at the Army Headquarters (Madrid).

The works are carried out through annual campaigns managed by the Border Commissions of the respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs and involves a large number of joint activities for the Spanish Army and Portugese Army, such as exchanging techniques and procedures, inspection visits and maintenance works on the boundary makers and posts between both countries. With the medals awarded today, the Spanish Army Ground Forces recognises the "professionalism, the importance of the mission and the good relationships and comradeship" of their Portugese comrades. 

Lieutenant Colonel Emilio J. Cortés Narváez, head of the Spanish Army Geographical Centre (in Spanish: Centro Geográfico del Ejército de Tierra, CGET), has placed the emphasis on the nearly 1,300 kilometres and more than 5,000 border markers, which are reviewed and revised in each campaign carried out by the CGET and the Portugese Army Geospatial Information Centre, as well as topography and geodesy knowledge, in order to complete the coordianted cross-checks, not forgetting cleaning and clearing when necessary, the introduction of the information collected in databases and the preparation of relevant reports. For his part, Colonel da Silva thanked the recognition and highlighted "the responsibility and commitment of the Portuguese Army towards Spain" in the care of border signaling and the climate of "mutual trust" in which this collaboration is carried out.

The Chief thanked the Portuguese ambassador to Spain, Francisco Ribeiro de Menezes, for attending the ceremony, and expressed his congratulations to the medal bearers for "their excellent work, dedication, commitment and knowledge." The work  maintains a border that unites "two countries that are truly brothers," according to Army General Domínguez Buj. The Chief of the Army also emphasized this magnificent moment demonstrating the relationship between the two countries, including between the two armies, which is currently reflected in the joint training of Iraqi military and police officers in Besmayah (Iraq).