Princess Leonor abandoned the training of the 11th battalion of the cadets of the General Military Academy (AGM) of Zaragoza. At a brisk pace to the rhythm of a march, she approached the national flag, removed the ros from her head and kissed the banner. Behind her, the weight of responsibility acquired by a 17-year-old heiress. In her memory, probably, the five generations that precede her stand in front of the same banner that she has kissed. A gesture with which she confirmed the oath that she had shouted minutes before along with her 409 companions and with which she shows once again how, in the midst of political noise, the normality of the Crown is a guarantor of stability in Spain.
The flag with which more than 29,000 ladies and gentlemen cadets have sworn allegiance to Spain since 1886 rests daily in a glass urn in a room at the AGM. This is a banner ordered by Queen María Cristina to be embroidered by the best Spanish artisans. Since the widow of Alfonso XII gave it to the Academy, it is the standard with which all officers swear. And the one that is Saturday has united Leonor with her past and with her future.
María Cristina and Alfonso XII are Doña Leonor’s great-great-grandparents. King Alfonso XIII is her great-great-grandfather and Don Juan is her great-grandfather. All of them have known and contemplated the flag that Leonor has honored today. Also her grandfather, Juan Carlos I, who swore before her in Zaragoza 58 years ago, and Don Felipe, who 38 years after her swearing in today has seen embodied in her daughter the confirmation that there is continuity dynastic. And there is it in the hands of a woman.
Leonor is called to become Queen of Spain, but also the first captain general of the three Armies. She is the best-known cadet in an Academy where, in her class, about 20% are women. And her presence in Zaragoza is great publicity for the Armed Forces and a reference for girls who doubt whether they have a military vocation, if they, like Leonor, could do it.
This Saturday he fulfilled the most important step for soldiers, the commitment to give his life for Spain. Something to which he has been taught from the cradle, a sacrifice materialized, in a second, through a kiss.
