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That's right, that American State's reserve regiment has been friendly with the BDF for 2 decades, and this evening, they celebrated the anniversary on the BDF's Price Barracks Compound. It gave us an opportunity to speak with the leaders of these two military units, and the US Ambassador to Belize about the milestone in their relationship. Here's what they told us about how each sides have benefitted:

H.E. Carlos Moreno - Us Ambassador to Belize
"We're celebrating a 20-year partnership with between the Belize National Guard and the BDF. The coast guard is also included and is part of that partnership. Many states in the United States have a National Guards which is like a reserved unit and they've established partnership relationships with other countries. In this case, Louisiana has a partnership with Belize and also with Haiti. The idea is to exchange techniques, skills, training, resources and materials so that each side can really benefit from that relationship. Over the years the relationship here has focused primarily on natural disaster relief and training."

Maj. Gen. Glenn Curtis, Adjutant Gen., Louisiana Nat'l Guard
"The good thing about the 20-year mark, as guys like myself and General Jones, we probably met 10 years ago, so we've grown a relationship ourselves over the 10 years and we know each other pretty well. At 20 years is a pretty mature relationship, so we kind of know each other's needs, we know each other's weaknesses and strengths. So we try to help where we can to facilitate and make ourselves stronger."

Brig. Gen David Jones - Commander - BDF
"It was developed mainly for the volunteer battalion to give them the opportunity to see how the National Guard work which is a similar organization in the US Army has here in Belize and to develop our volunteer battalion. It stretched out to assistance that has been given to the regular force and officers being trained from the volunteers in Louisiana. So we've had an excess of 10 who have gone to Louisiana to do the training and they've brought back that experience with them here to Belize to provide that leadership that we need in the volunteers. It had stretched to disaster relief where we learn from their expertise. They have had tremendous experience with hurricane Katrina that devastated the US. We learned from them, we go into their joint intelligence and operations center, we see how they operate prior to a storm, what happens during the storm and even after. What the rehabilitation effort is like, what sort of engineering effort is required from a military organization to support our civil authorities. So engineering is a big part that we are partnering with them, they've just recently sent some of their engineers here at Price Barracks."

In 2 days, a small group of BDF soldiers will be travelling to Louisiana for a similar military parade.