The passage of the Tricolour Arrows sealed the moment of “I swear!” with the tricolour tail. After the passage of the Tricolour Arrows, which sealed the moment of “
I swear it!”,the baptism of the course took place.
Admiral Luigi Binelli Mantelli recalled that “
The sacred simplicity of the oath unites the students of all academies of all times, in the awareness of being able and having the duty to be protagonists and not bystanders in the Armed Forces and in the history of their own Nation”.
The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, addressing the young cadets of Course Rostro IV, said to them “[…]
You should be proud to have become soldiers, because military service is a value, a high value, for society. You should be proud […]
Because you have sworn allegiance to the Republic and its institutions, represented by the National Flag, to which we all bow our heads”.
He also greeted the three protagonists upon returning from the International Space Station: Commander Fyodor Nikolaevich Yurchikhin, flight engineer Karen Nyberg and Major Luca Parmitano, who in 1995 began his military career at the Air Academy, the same school that prepares everyone, from the greatest to the smallest, for the future.
At the end of his speech, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, addressing the students again, reminded them that “[…]
From now on, you will have a task: to ensure the security of the country. This is the ultimate essence of being a soldier..[…]
You will be prepared, that is, instructed and educated to do so in the best possible way with sacrifice. The State invests in you. It invests in your expectations whether you become pilots, Officers in the Armed Forces, engineers, commissars, doctors, or even astronauts. Education means drawing out, means developing the sense of duty, and education is only a means to rise to a higher moral greatness. Education is the container of education. Without education, education becomes, as Cadorna said, perverse. The lack of education is synonymous with the absence of rules of coexistence, of respect for the laws, and therefore of subjective and social indiscipline, and indiscipline is an ancient evil of society. Discipline comes from long education and the inner discipline is the most effective because the external one is imposed by others and disappears in the absence of the imposter. Discipline serves primarily for our own benefit and is essential in critical moments of our lives, including operationally during flight missions and during ground operations.”.
In his speech, the Commander of the Air Academy, General of the Air Force Fernando Giancotti, after greeting all the military and civil authorities and the guests present, highlighted that the students: “[…]
After this oath, they will be different, because today they dedicate themselves to the values contained in the formula that I will read and that we declaim in our daily lives with the principles of the Armed Forces: Excellence, Respect, Example, Dedication, Integrity. EREDI is the acronym that encompasses them, because today the boys become, like all of us, heirs of a wealth of skills and values that they must understand, enrich, and pass on to their heirs, every day, throughout their entire professional lives and beyond, as the godfathers testify to us today.”.
During the ceremony, Lieutenant Colonel Gianfranco Paglia, Gold Medal for Military Valor, also addressed the IV Rostro Course, in his touching speech he said to them: ”[…]
In life, it is not important to walk with your own legs or in a wheelchair, but the awareness that you have always done your duty. […]”.
In his speech, General Giuseppe Piseddu, centenarian and the only survivor of the Rex course, decorated with a silver medal and three bronze medals for military valor, urged the students to maintain the enthusiasm they have today, which will support them throughout their careers, aware that this career can bring them satisfactions that few other young people will be able to achieve.
At the end of the ceremony, General Preziosa presented General Piseddu with a commemorative booklet of his long career.
Rai 3 – TgR Campania of April 16, 2014 at 19:30 Canal 21 – VG21 of April 16, 2014 at 23:00 Speech by the Chief of the General Staff of the Defence – Admiral Luigi Binelli Mantelli Speech by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force – General of S.A. Pasquale Preziosa Speech by the Commander of the Air Academy – General of S.A. Ferdinando Giancotti I disagree with General Giuseppe Piseddu – Dean of the REX Course
