The land parade, presided over by the King and Queen of Spain, the culmination of the celebration of the ‘Armed Forces Day 2024’.

•  More than 3,000 military personnel took part in this central event in Oviedo, which was opened and closed by the ‘Eagle’ Patrol.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia presided over the land parade in Oviedo, the central event of Armed Forces Day. They were accompanied in the Royal Tribune by the Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, the Chief of Defence Staff (JEMAD), Admiral Teodoro Esteban López Calderón and other civilian and military authorities.

On this occasion, the parade was attended by 3,293 soldiers from the three armies, the Royal Guard and the Civil Guard, who completed a route of approximately one kilometre. There were also 121 vehicles, including 13 armoured vehicles and 36 motorbikes

This year, as a novelty, this event was started and finished by the ‘Eagle’ Patrol of the Air and Space Army.

Escorted by the Cavalry Unit of the Royal Guard, the King and Queen arrived by car at the Avenida de los Hermanos Menéndez Pidal, where most of the parade took place, and listened to the national anthem accompanied by a 21-gun salute.

After the raising of the flag, the King and Queen witnessed the parachute jump of two members of the acrobatic patrol of the Air and Space Army. Miguel Antonio Gómez, from Asturias, carried the Spanish flag, which is 4 metres square and weighs 15 kilos.

The tribute to the fallen, during which the King, in the uniform of Captain General of the Air and Space Army, laid a laurel wreath, gave way to the parade of the different units of armoured vehicles and motorbikes, personnel on foot and, finally, personnel on horseback. The commemorative events organised in Asturias, with the participation of 6,250 military personnel, which on Friday had another central day, in this case in Gijón, with a naval review and an air parade in the bay of San Lorenzo, were thus completed.

This celebration of Armed Forces Day, an annual meeting between civilians and the military, dates back to 1978 when it was established to hold an institutional event that would serve as a tribute to the Army and the Navy to promote knowledge of society and their integration into it. The DIFAS is traditionally held on the Saturday coinciding with or closest to 30 May, the feast of Saint Ferdinand, King of Castile in 1217, who took part in various military campaigns and was proclaimed a saint by Pope Clement in 1671.