The Armed Forces are celebrating their anniversary. This 2023 marks 35 years since the incorporation of women into the different military academies. There were 27 who joined in 1998; Currently there are a total of 15,703 military women: 13% of the total number of troops. This Thursday, one of them, Corporal María del Carmen Gómez Hurtado (Elche, 1985) made history, becoming the first parachutist to jump with the Spanish flag on the occasion of the military parade.
The corporal, who is assigned to the Parachute Acrobatic Patrol of the Air and Space Army (PAPEA), jumped after 11:00 a.m. from a C-212 Aviocar preceded by First Corporal Miguel Antonio Gómez Rivas – who acted as a guide for their binomial. With a perfect execution, the corporal – who is one of the few women who has obtained the green beret of the prestigious Special Operations Unit of the Air Force – stuck her feet in the indicated area, although not in front of the tribune, as in years previous, by the vegetation around Madrid's Plaza de Neptuno, the epicenter of the event.
Once the jump was completed, the event continued with the raising of the national flag and tribute to those who gave their lives for Spain. At that moment, Princess Leonor – in Army dress – accompanied her father for the first time to place a laurel wreath at the foot of the newly raised flag.
And after that, the flag that the Águila Patrol drew in the air gave way to the military parade that managed to bring – along with the good weather that marked the day – thousands of citizens onto the streets. A total of 86 aircraft, 57 airplanes and 29 helicopters, participated in the aerial parade, and 142 vehicles participated in the motorized parade, 33 of them motorcycles. Not all military, there was also space for the National Police and Civil Protection.
Likewise, 210 horses paraded. In addition, 4,177 soldiers walked along the Paseo del Prado during the military parade. Of them, 291 have done so in the aerial parade; 3121 in the walking parade; 397 in the motorized one; 210 on horseback and 156 in the lowering of the flag.
And as is also tradition, the eyes of adults and children were focused on the passage of the Legion, accompanied by the mascot. This year, a goat nicknamed Pacoli.
