The Deputy Minister of National Defense Mr. Ioannis Kefalogiannis, attended yesterday, Wednesday 29 November 2023, representing the President of the Hellenic Government, the revelation ceremony of the “Memorial to the Heroes of the Armed Forces”, in the presence of the Chief/HNDGS General Konstantinos Floros. The ceremony was also attended by the President of the Hellenic Parliament Konstantinos Tasoulas, his Eminence the Bishop of Thespies Mr. Pavlos, Representative of the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, the Chief/HAGS Lieutenant General Angelos Houdeloudis, the Chief /HNGS Vice Admiral Ioannis Drymousis HN, the Representative of the Chief/HAFGS Major General (AF) Antonios Panidis, the Mayor of Papagos-Holargos Ilias Apostolopoulos, the Ambassador for the Republic of Cyprus Stavros Avgoustidis, representatives of the security forces, as well as active and retired officers and NCOs.
During his address, the Deputy Minister emphasized that Greece pays the appropriate tribute to those who hesitated not to sacrifice their lives on the altar of the noble ideals, that is freedom, liberty, and the territorial integrity of the homeland, while in the meantime delivering the message of the Minister of National Defense, Nikos Dendias for today’s ceremony, as he was unable to attend.
In his address, the Deputy Minister declared:
“We hold the inauguration of the Memorial to the Heroes of the Armed Forces today with feelings of deep emotion”, in order to pay the appropriate tribute to our fallen heroes. To them who never hesitated to sacrifice their life on the altar of noble ideals, namely freedom, independence and the territorial integrity of our country.
Greece, our country, has had a great and long history. A country, having known her fair share of glory, as few others have during the centuries. She has created a unique civilization, which has spread to the ends of the earth. She has conceived of the idea of democracy, which is now dominant in all of the civilized world. Philosophy, the sciences, the arts, all trace their origins back to our country.
At the same time, she has fought hard to safeguard this high civilisation and these noble ideas. Since the Trojan war, the battle of Marathon, Thermopylae, the battle of Salamis, the campaigns of Alexander the Great, and the struggle against the Romans, all of antiquity has been full of struggles, as well as heroic dead, for the defense of freedom and the transmission of Greek light.
For more than a millennium, Constantinople has been a bulwark of Europe against the expansionist ambitions of peoples who have viewed its liberty with envy. It is an established fact, that modern European culture would not have exited without the heroic dead of Byzantium.
But even during the four centuries of slavery, the Greeks fought bravely to regain their liberty. Which they gained, at a great blood price. The dead of the revolution of 1821 were thousands. Their sacrifice however, laid the foundations of an independent and proud country.
The struggles continued, glorifying and magnifying Greece. The dead in the Cretan Revolution, the Macedonian Struggle, the Balkan War and other Wars, which our country was forced to conduct, ran in the thousands. Their sacrifice however gifted our Greece wreaths of glory, freedom and dignity.
