Expenditures on Military Ceremonies

La Tercera, Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Recently, this medium has mentioned the expenditure on military ceremonies, and I tend to agree with Undersecretary Galli in the sense that we must be austere in this matter, but not to the point of eliminating them, as some might suggest. That said, we must ask ourselves what the value and purpose of the ceremonies conducted by the Armed Forces are, in which we commemorate historically significant events of great political and strategic importance in Chile’s history, and the sacrifices made by our predecessors for us to be a free and sovereign country.

We celebrate them because, without those events and heroic acts, we would not be who we are: a politically independent and sovereign country. We remember them because the day we stop doing so, we will cease to be Chileans, and we will only be a group of people without origin and identity, who merely share the same land, and, very possibly, without destiny or future. We remember them because it is good practice to be grateful to those who gave their lives for us.

“A people without memory is a people without a future.”