(ANSA) - ROME, 04 MAY - "The 160th Anniversary of the founding of the Italian Army offers the opportunity to express gratitude towards an Armed Force, an important resource for the country and protagonist in significant moments of our unified history. A professional heritage that is rightly recognized and valued also on the occasion of the present pandemic crisis. In this way, officers, non-commissioned officers, graduates, enlisted men and civilian personnel, feelings of recognition for the service you render to the institutions of the Republic, to which you are bound by an oath of loyalty and, in particular, appreciation for what you have done and are doing to counter the serious health emergency. Your valuable and qualified contribution to the functioning of the National Health System and,in competition with the Police Forces, to ensure the safety of the framework for the exercise of the free activities of our communities, it has been confirmed to be of absolute value. We will pass this test and it will also be for your contribution. "Thus the President of the Republic, SergioMattarella, in a message sent to the Chief of State Major of the Army, General of the Army Corps, Pietro Serino.
"On this important day - says the President of the Republic - I would first like to turn my thoughts to the Flag of the Army, a symbol of honor and value written in the secular pages of its Corps and its Specialties, and to all those who have given their lives or who have remained wounded for the good of the homeland. Their sacrifice is for us all an example of the dedication and virtues proper to citizens in uniform. The Army, proud of its proprietary traditions, has confirmed its role as a fundamental component in the management of the many commitments undertaken in the context of alliances and of the coalitions to which we adhere to the decision of Parliament.The more than one-hundred-year history of the ForzaArmata continues today through the process of innovation capable of tackling new challenges in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing scenario in an inter-force key, with the enhancement of human capital at the center ". (ANSA).