Amerigo Vespucci is heading toward New York to celebrate, on July 4, the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States of America.
Amerigo Vespucci will be there for a long-planned voyage to recall our century-old relationship with the USA and the deep friendship that binds our two peoples.
She will be there for the twenty million Italian Americans who have contributed to making that nation great.
She will be there to bear witness to our gratitude and to remember the 16,757 American soldiers who rest in our cemeteries or are listed as missing in Italy, when the contribution of the Allies was decisive for the Liberation of the Country.
She will be there also thinking of the 13,821 American soldiers and the 2,575 American civilians and their families who collaborate with us, in Italy, every day, and who are welcomed as brothers, to ensure the security of the Atlantic Alliance.
She will be there to remember the sacrifice of the over 1,000 Italian military personnel, dead and wounded, in international missions, alongside our American, NATO, EU, and UN allies, from Afghanistan to the Balkans, and of our civilians engaged with them.
She will be there to recall the sharing of values, the defense of common ideals, and the will to continue walking together.
She will be there to bring a piece of Italy to a friendly nation, on the day of its birth.
She will be there with the pride of representing a Nation that respects values, commitments, and allies, always, every day, for eighty years.