The Barbados Defence Force (BDF) has demonstrated its relevance and usefulness to Barbados and there are lessons Barbadians can learn from it.
This view was expressed by Government Senator Rudy Grant when the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2021 was debated yesterday. Grant said the BDF displayed elements such as humanitarianism and discipline from which Barbados continued to benefit.
Declaring to the Senate that he was “in full support for the bill before the Honourable Chamber”, Grant maintained the BDF was indeed relevant.
“The Barbados Defence Force has demonstrated a relevance that is important and has shown over those years that it was, and has been and continues to be a very useful institution.”
Grant added the BDF provided more support than “just simply that of protecting the country against some foreign invasion” and he contended there was a lot younger people in Barbados could learn from institutions such as the BDF particularly in terms of discipline.
He noted the soldiers had proven to be effective in assisting the Royal Barbados Police Force with maintaining law and order, and cited the response of motor cyclists contravening the road traffic regulations, when BDF soldiers intervened with the police.
“I think that we should do whatever is required to continue to have an institution where persons can look and see and observe that you have to be disciplined and that you have to function in a particular manner” Grant said. (GC)
