Recruits Complete Milestone Graduation

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Saturday, 19 May 2012 02:30

By Alex Holder

Antigua St John's - Fifty-nine recruits graduated on Friday from the Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force’s Camp Blizzard to mark the successful completion of the first joint training exercise between Antigua and St Kitts & Nevis. The exercise lasted 15 weeks.

The recruits included 41 from St Kitts & Nevis, and the group’s only two women. The other 38 were from Antigua.

Present at the graduation ceremony were Chief of Staff of the ABDF Col Trevor Thomas and Commander of the St Kitts Nevis Defence Force Lt Col PE Walace JP. Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Baldwin Spencer, along with the minister of National Security and the commissioner of police were also on hand to witness the milestone graduation.

Thomas told Caribarena.com that he and his St Kitts counterpart had been planning the joint training initiative for some time.

“I see no reason not to have joint training between us and St Kitts, and even Montserrat,” he said.

He added that considering the proximity of the territories and the fact that co-operation between them has long been notably strong, initiatives like these could only work out to the benefit of the personnel and the individual nations.

“We are alone up here in this neck of the woods," he said. "We are at the northern tier and it makes a lot of sense that, particularly in hard times, we train together. We work together, so why not train together? Why not pool our meagre resources together and reap the maximum benefit. This is what it is all about."



Lieutenant Troy Lake of the ABDF is the officer responsible for training in Antigua. He was joined in this exercise by Chief Instructor from St Kitts and Nevis – Warrant Officer Williams.

Now that the training is complete, the SKN privates would return to their home base, where they will move into the trained soldiers course, another six-week long exercise that starts the squaddies along the path of becoming professional soldiers.

This aspect of the training exercise must be completed within the individual ports, according to the chief of staff, due to the legal aspects of the exercise that may differ in each country.

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Of the 51 graduates, special awards and prizes went to Recruit L Nedd for best physical, Recruit D Carlos, who was honoured as best recruit of his batch and of ABDF. Recruit K Hendrickson was recognised as best recruit of the SKNDF.

The next joint training operation between the two countries has not yet been planned, but Col Thomas said Antigua will go forward with a new batch of recruits by June. He said he has not discussed whether SKN would be joining at that point.

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