Mexico City. In an unprecedented event, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo led the ceremony for the 177th anniversary of the Heroic Deed of the Boy Heroes of Chapultepec at the altar of the homeland.
This is the first time that the imminent successor, in this case the successor, of a president accompanies him to this military ceremony where honor is paid to the young people who defended Chapultepec Castle on September 13, 1847, when the invading U.S. army attacked Mexican sovereignty.
Along with the high command of the armed forces, the secretaries of National Defense, General Luis Cresencio Sandoval, and of the Navy, Admiral José Rafael Ojeda, the Chief Executive and the next president mounted an honor guard and placed a floral offering on the altar to the homeland.
Also present were the president’s wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez Muller, the head of government of Mexico City, Martí Batres, and the Secretary of the Interior, Luisa Alcalde.
As is tradition, the president entered the country aboard an all-terrain Army vehicle, accompanied by his imminent successor, followed by the Secretaries of Defense and the Navy.
The intention of the invaders, it was said at the ceremony, was to advance towards Chapultepec Castle, then the headquarters of the Military College, and a nerve center for the defense of the nation.
As is tradition, the president entered the country aboard an all-terrain vehicle of the Army together with his imminent successor, behind them the secretaries of Defense and Navy. Photo José Antonio López
With the honors required by military protocol, the head of the Executive and supreme commander of the armed forces performed the roll call of the heroes of that feat:
For the Military College, Lieutenant Juan de la Barrera and cadets Juan Escutia, Agustín Melgar, Vicente Suárez, Fernando Montes de Oca and Francisco Márquez; while for the Heroic Naval School, Lieutenant José Azueta and cadet Virgilio Uribe.
López Obrador also gave swords to six cadets—three women and three men—from the Heroica Colegio Militar, “as a symbol of their commitment to defend the country with honor.”
The only speaker at the event was third-year cadet from the Military College, Javier Enrique Valencia, who stressed that in this bloody battle of 1847, those who defended the nation “taught us that no matter the challenges that threaten the nation, none will be superior to the courage of the Mexicans.”
He added that the members of the Military College “were outnumbered and outgunned, and yet they fought with conviction and courage, teaching us that the homeland is everything.”
Heirs of those heroes, said Cadet Valencia, who today are part of the Heroic Military College, “we will defend the highest ideals of freedom and justice, as custodians of this legacy, in the face of any circumstance that affects our sovereignty, we will give everything for the honor of Mexico.”
Several cadets from the Heroic Military College fired a rifle salute in honor of the child heroes.
The ceremony concluded with the honor guard and the floral offering to those young people, almost all of them teenagers, who history has shown gave their lives for the nation.
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– 2024-09-18 20:41:55
