Passing Out Parade
The Passing Out Parade is the most spectacular among the end-of-term events at the NDA. It is also the culminating event of another successful term. The unique parade held at the Khetarpal Parade Ground comprises over one thousand participating cadets bidding farewell to their senior colleagues. A masterly display of drill movements, synchronised with the accompanying band ingrains long lasting memories in participants as well as viewers. The haunting strains of 'Auld Lang Syne' and the Adjutant on his charger accompany the passing out cadets to The Final Steps.
In the closing moments, the mast at the Quarter Deck is manned by the cadets of the junior most course to cheer on the passing out course as they go past the Quarter Deck in slow march. At the final step, engulfed by a flood of nostalgia spanning three eventful years, each cadet can feel justifiably proud of his achievement. Three years ago, he had entered the portals of this hallowed institution with a little trepidation perhaps; he leaves now a young man strong in body and mind, confident and assured and proud of values imbibed here. He is well on his way to achieving the ideals of an officer and a gentleman.
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Famous quotes containing the words passing and/or parade:
“The unpleasant events you are passing from will not have been profitless to you.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)