by Charles Gladden

LADYVILLE, Thurs. May 25, 2023

A total of 125 men and women from Belize’s armed forces—the Belize Defence Force (BDF) and the Belize Coast Guard (BCG)—left the Philip Goldson International Airport (PGIA) on Wednesday, May 24, en route to Louisiana in the United States, where they will receive intensive military training from the Louisiana National Guard.

The three-week training session is conducted every four years.

Before dawn, a delegation of 75 members of the regular BDF with 25 volunteer soldiers and 25 Coast Guard officers lined up inside the PGIA with their boarding passes and passports in hand.

“We have a very robust state partnership with them, with the United States of America, and they invited us to attend their Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) located in Louisiana and parts of Alabama,” said Brigadier General Azariel Loria, Commander of the BDF.

Brigadier General Loria added, “… They will do basic military training to refresh their skills. They’re trained professional soldiers here, but we are going to do a little bit of joint training along with them, joint bi-national training, where they are going to put into practice what they have so far, and try to learn new military skills.”

While members of the BDF have participated in these sessions periodically, it will be the first time that members of the Coast Guard will participate in such training. Rear Admiral Elton Bennett, Commandant of the Belize Coast Guard, told Amandala that while the training isn’t a part of their duties, it is particularly useful in the context of what they learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Lisa.

“What the JRTC will provide to the Belize Coast Guard is not within the first scope of duties the Belize Coast Guard performs. But it is very essential, something we learned in the after action of Hurricane Lisa. The Belize Coast Guard will be required to work shoulder to shoulder with the Belize Defence Force in built-up areas, especially in Belize City where our disaster relief efforts jointly really had a huge impact in Belize City alone. So that’s something that the Belize Coast Guard would not normally do, and so learning from that, we figured it would be a good opportunity to expand the scope of our training,”

Before the BDF soldiers and Coast Guard officers boarded their flight, Minister of National Defence and Border Security, Hon. Florencio Marin, addressed them, and during his remarks he stated, “It is important that we get all this readiness training for our soldiers, and this is one of the best opportunities we will be getting, and that is why I felt it is important to be here for them to know that their government is with them, here to support them, and it is always good to lift the morale of the troops.”

The delegation is scheduled to return to Belize on June 14.