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The personality of Romania's King Ferdinand I and the fundamental role of the military in the Romanian society were honoured on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Military Technical Academy in Bucharest.
"You have a royal spiritual patron, Ferdinand the Unifier, the first marshal of the Romanian Army, whose name you have decided to use for your university. The past that the name of the university includes is, in fact, the most beautiful page in our modern history. The unifier of our country therefore raises the level of your ideals at least to the level at which he and Queen Marie agreed to do their duty to this country. But, you are also a symbol of the present, because after 154 years of the Crown standing next to the Romanian Army, writing together the modern history of this country, we, today, in 2021, are together again uninterrupted, to put properly, in its place, our identity and the Romanian present that has so much to learn from you through patriotism, discipline, a spirit of responsibility and the force of sacrifice, if need be," Radu told the Ferdinand I Military Technical Academy students in attendance.
He said the defence of the future is defined by technology. "You are preparing to make Romania more stable and predictable, with both tools in your hands: military art and science. That is why we believe that the painting that Her Majesty, King Ferdinand's great-granddaughter, is handing you today is a symbol of the future as much as it is a symbol of the past," added Radu.
The Custodian of the Romanian Crown, Margareta, presented the Military Technical Academy with a painting of King Ferdinand I by visual artist Valentin Tanase.
The rector of the Ferdinand I Military Technical Academy, Constantin Iulian Vizitiu, said that the higher education institution wanted to receive the name of the unifier of the country in May 2018 because it is under his scepter that the Greater Union of 1918 was achieved.
He invited Margareta and Radu to the July 29 graduation ceremony of the academy, which this year will symbolically bear the honorific name "King Mihai I 100."
Vizitiu handed Margareta a plaque and a monograph of the Ferdinand I Military Technical Academy.
