Dear compatriots
I greet you today together with Commander Simi, our military attaché in Singapore.
The opening of a military office in our embassy just over a year ago was an important choice. A choice that proves both the special attention that Italy dedicates to this region of the world, and the fact that our administrations work effectively together, side by side, in support of our political and economic interests.
Today, in Italy and abroad we celebrate November 4, the day of the Armed Forces. On November 4, over a century ago, in 1918, with the battle of Vittorio Veneto, Italy ended victoriously its participation in the first world war.
For that victory, which was then felt as the end of Risorgimento, the struggle for Italian unity, Italy paid a very high price: around 600,000 dead and over one million injured.
Young Italians from all over the country came to know each other and shared a common destiny, including thousands of those who had emigrated abroad, and returned to their homeland to do what they believed was their duty.
Reminding ourselves of these circumstances is also significant here in Singapore. Singapore is a relatively young country, which has achieved its independence not without sacrifices, and always with an eye to the future, to the ability to innovate, to build and create, to learn and to educate, managing to get many cultures and different identities to work together to create a new Nation.
It is a history that our Singaporean friends can rightly feel proud of, and that can be an inspiration to us all.
And it is a history that resonates with that of our young Italians in Vittorio Veneto, and deserves to be known, told and celebrated, as we are doing today.
It is with great pleasure that I again greet you and our friends from Singapore, and I leave the floor to Commander Simi.
