Like every year, 16,134 members of the Armed Forces took part in the colorful 213th Anniversary of Independence Parade, the theme of which on this occasion highlights the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Heroic Military College.
More than 14,000 Defense Department elements and just over two thousand Navy elements participated, although in modern times they are added to the Air Force with the sophistication of their fighter aircraft squadrons.
People flock to the locations of the parade, whose ceremony begins in the Zócalo with the national anthem, the honoring of the flag and the parade in a military vehicle by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as Commander-in-Chief, accompanied by the senior officials of the three arms.
Columns of men and women, 16 emergency and armored vehicles, 11 boats and six Texan II T6C aircraft, two of them crewed by women, were admired by tens of thousands of citizens who filled the parade grounds early in the morning to see them up close , as the planes flew over the city, releasing jets of smoke in the colors of the flag.
For the second year in a row, students from maritime schools and the merchant navy demonstrated in the naval contingent.
National Defense personnel, Army, Air Force, National Guard personnel and Heroic Military College cadets conducted the largest rifle barrage ever; Likewise, 15 artillery pieces fired together an impressive volley shot with purple smoke.
17 foreign delegations from the partner countries Belize, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, South Korea, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic, Russia and Uruguay took part.
The military parade is one of the most anticipated spectacles on the national holidays and is particularly attractive for children. but above all it has a very high historical significance.
After the Dolores cry of Priest Hidalgo in Guanajuato, the Mexican people set out with weapons in hand to complete the independence proclaimed on the night of September 15th.
The struggle for independence continued after the treacherous assassination of Hidalgo, who was beheaded and his head displayed in the public square of Guanajuato for ten years. But people overcame the terrible devastation of war, which claimed more than a million lives.
In 1821, 11 years after the Grito, the consummation of independence was achieved after Agustín Iturbide promulgated the Iguala Plan, which raised the Trigarante Army under his command from Tacubaya by September 16, 1821, proclaimed Juan O’ Donojú the end of the war.
At 10:00 a.m., the supreme leader led the parade that entered the capital with 16,134 soldiers, including infantry, cavalry dragoons and artillerymen, with 68 cannons of different calibers.
They made their way along Paseo Nuevo to Corpus Christi Avenue, where they stopped at the corner of the San Francisco Convent under a triumphal arch. The dean and mayor José Ignacio Ormachea handed him the keys to the city.
On September 28, the Provisional Government Council held its first meeting in the Arrangements Room of the newly named Imperial Palace. The 38 members went to the cathedral to swear the Plan of Iguala and the Treaties of Córdoba.
At nine o’clock in the evening the signing of the Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire took place. Mexico was already a free, independent and sovereign country.
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