Operation Tradewinds 2015 concluded today and a ceremony was held at the Price Barracks this morning to honour the soldiers who participated in this
year's session. The Trade Winds was separated into two phases: the Martime phase which was done in St. Kitts and Nevis and the Land Phase which was
completed in Belize. It was a long and grueling week of challenging military training operations but it wasn't all about the test of strength or the
level of preparedness for combat – more importantly it was about building meaningful relationships among nations.
H.E. Carlos Moreno - U.S. ambassador to Belize
"My impression, my view of what all of you have been engaged in this past week has been not so much about engaging in an enormously complex, physical
logistically challenging operation. It's not so much about engaging in a joint response capability of various nations to fight the threat of counter
terrorism - preparing for national disasters relief or engaging in humanitarian assistance. Of course it is all that. It's also not so much about
testing or comparing the equipment or facilities of one military organisation with another. And in kind of a larger sense to me it's not even about one
nation cooperating with another nation. In my mind, what I see is not so much hand to hand but hand in hand cooperation. And yes at one level it
involves military organisations but on another level it's what I would foresee and speak about the human element."
Brig. Gen. David Jones, Commander - Belize Defence Force
"Over the past 2 weeks - primarily here in Belize they have been doing marksmanship training, they've been doing coordinates and search operations,
they've been doing law enforcement operation which included investigation, crime scene management and concluding to trying to catch perpetrators who
have committed crimes. And of course, jungle training which is the premiere thing for Belize. We're trying to put Belize on the map as a premiere
jungle warfare instructor location within this region. Having trade wings exercise here, we are reaching that goal. Because the students who came here
for the most part have been able to go through at least a one week phase of our jungle training - to see what training is like here in Belize. Our
instructors are among the best in the world, we were able to show case ourselves."
"Training is very important. For all militaries who are naturally suppose to be preparing for war training is important. If you don't train you won't
be prepared for anything. You won't be prepared for conflict, you won't be prepared for operations, you won't be prepared for any natural disaster that
night happen within the country. So the training that was done here, we had in excess of over 100 soldiers from the BDF who were intimately part of it.
And we had a number of our soldiers who have been part of the logistics, who've been part of the planning phase, who have been part of the execution
phase. So a lot of our soldiers got exposed to some of the training. Some of the training was done is in preparation for real time scenarios and
threats that has affected the region - counter narcotics and law enforcement issues."
This is the 3rd time Belize has hosted Trade Winds. This is the first time that Mexico, Canada and the UK participated in this years Trade Winds.
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