The armed forces have a birthday. This 2023 marks the 35th anniversary of the incorporation of women into the various military academies. There were 27 that joined in 1998; there are currently 15,703 military women: 13% of the total force. Yesterday, one of them, Corporal María del Carmen Gómez Hurtado (Elche, 1985) made history, becoming the first paratrooper to jump with the Spanish flag on the occasion of the military parade.
The corporal, who is assigned to the parachutist aerobatic patrol of the Air and Space Army (Papea), jumped after 11 a.m. from a C-212 Aviocar preceded by corporal Miguel Antonio Gómez Rivas -which acted as a guide for his binomial-. With a perfect execution, the corporal – who is one of the few women to have achieved the green beret of the prestigious special operations unit of the Air Force – planted her feet in the indicated area, although not in front of the tribune, as in previous years, due to the vegetation around Madrid's Plaça Neptuno, the epicenter of the event.
Once the jump was complete, the event continued with the raising of the flag and the tribute to those who gave their lives for Spain. At that moment, Princess Eleonor – wearing the gala dress of the Earth Army – accompanied her father for the first time to lay a laurel wreath at the feet of the flag that had just been raised.
And after that, the flag that the Águila patrol drew in the air gave way to the military parade, which managed to bring - along with the good weather that marked the day - thousands of citizens to the streets. A total of 86 aircraft, 57 airplanes and 29 helicopters participated in the aerial parade, and 142 vehicles, 33 of them motorcycles, participated in the motorized parade. Not all military, there was also space for the National Police and Civil Protection.
Likewise, 210 horses paraded. In addition, during the military parade, more than 4,170 military personnel walked the Paseo del Prado. Of them, 291 did it in the aerial parade; 3,121 in the parade on foot; 397 in the motorized; 210 on horseback and 156 in carrying the flag.
And as is tradition, the eyes of adults and children focused on the passing of the Legion, accompanied by their mascot. This year, a rye called Pacoli.
