Today at Price Barracks in Ladyville, the BDF celebrated its 38th year anniversary and also passed out recruit intake number 61. After 16 weeks of intense physical training, these 80 men and women now join the ranks of the BDF. Minister of National Security John Saldivar presented the keynote address to the new recruits.
Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of National Security
"Give them a round of applause for their survival. Recruit training by design and by intention is tough both mentally and physically and only the strongest will survive. In October 2015, when these recruits assemble here in Price Barracks, they were immediately introduced to the routine of military life and other requirements of being a soldier. The following morning no doubt was perhaps their biggest revelation as that morning and every morning thereafter started at 4:30am and lasted until 11pm in the night. A 19 hour day of training is not unusual in the life of a recruit as they are expected to work long hours after they become trained soldiers."
Emanuel Pech
"How will these men be distributed among the force?"
Brig. Gen. David Jones - Commander, BDF
"Well they'll be distributed equally between the two infantry battalions that we have. Each of the infantry battalion have 6 companies; each company has about 100 men. So they will be disseminated into these battalions. One in headquarters in the Cayo District at Camp Belizario. The other battalion is headquarters in Punta Gorda at Fairweather Camp. So they will be split in half and they will be divided into all those 6 companies and they will start doing the border patrols just as the rest of the other BDF soldier are doing."
Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of National Security
"You could never have enough for our security. But it is better than it has been and we believe that it is adequate. So we are glad that we are able to provide more soldiers for the BDF to be able to provide the type of security we would want to see on our borders. But we have our ways to go. We still have more places we want to have a presence in. There is 170 plus miles of border that we cannot cover everything at this time, but we are growing. We are getting there and we feel good about where we are right now."
120 recruits started training in December but only 80 survived the intense training. Recruit Lanza G was awarded the champion recruit. After all the formalities, the new recruits put on an impressive display of fireworks. The addition of today's recruits brings the number of BDF soldiers to a little under 1300.
Governor General Sir Colville attended the ceremony as did a few members of armed forces from Britain, Canada, and El Salvador.
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