Over two dozen more recruits join up for CI Regiment
(CNS): Twenty-nine men and women who joined the Cayman Islands Regiment in its third round of recruitment have completed two weeks of intense basic military skills training, including first aid, communication and navigation skills, basic water rescue as well as humanitarian and disaster relief skills. This swells the ranks of this military organisation to 110 personnel, 95% of which are reservists who offer a support infrastructure for all of the other uniform services across all three islands.
A graduation ceremony for Cohort 3 of the CIR took place at the Cayman International School Arts and Recreational Centre on Sunday, 14 August.
The regiment training involves collaboration and partnership with other emergency services, namely Hazard Management (HMCI), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS), Cayman Islands Coast Guard (CICG) and Cayman Islands Fire Service (CIFS), officials said. This ensures that recruits are trained to provide resilience and support in any national emergency, such as an earthquake, pandemic, tropical storm, hurricane or major fire.
CIR Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Watson said the basic training was key to the regiment’s ability to support the wider community through teamwork and partnership while undergoing mental and physical training.
“The CI Regiment provides support to our partner uniform services in the event of a national emergency. As such, it is imperative that our recruits are trained in a wide range of skills to ensure they are aptly prepared to respond in varying emergency scenarios across all three islands,” he said.
Instructors with a range of different skill sets came from the United Kingdom to help provide the necessary training in a safe environment for the recruits. The UK training team coordinated military instructor training courses geared towards building the regiment’s capability, resiliency and development. Four CIR personnel underwent Drill Instructor Training (DIT) and four others underwent Physical Training Instructor (PTI) course.
“This is the third and final training team from the UK that assisted the Regiment with its recruit training. Moving forward, CIR will be undertaking all basic training internally with its own trained instructors,” Watson said.
At a graduation ceremony held on Sunday, Home Affairs Minister Sabrina Turner presented certificates to the CIR personnel who successfully completed the PTI and DIT courses, along with the best performing personnel within each course. Two awards were also presented during the ceremony to the Best International Student from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, which was presented to Second Lieutenant James MacFee, and the Best Cohort 3 Recruit, which was awarded to Trooper Darrel Evans.
“As the minister responsible for Home Affairs, I am proud of the dedication, willingness and achievements of the men and women of the Regiment Cohort 3. Their support of our uniformed service infrastructure in the event of a national emergency is commendable,” she said.
While the creation of a military force, supported by the British government, has in the past raised some concerns in the community, Governor Martin Roper, who inspected the parade of the new recruits, once again stressed that the primary purposes of the regiment are disaster preparedness and response.
“They have already been tested and proved their worth. They have rescued people from flooded homes after tropical storms, distributed food aid to families in need whilst in COVID quarantine, cleared storm debris, and so much more,” Roper said. “Cayman is better placed to respond to natural disasters thanks to the dedication of this group, who in turn are learning many valuable, transferrable skills.”
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I have a friend who is a volunteer police officer and I was shocked to find out they get no pay at all for there service. They have all the powers and responsibility of a regular paid officer and face the same risks with no reward.
The regiment gets paid when they work train or go to camps something’s not right with that
Your friend might have missed it in their RCIPs title, but it’s common knowledge worldwide that “volunteers” do not get paid.
The job title is ‘volunteer’. Clue is in the name
That’s literally what volunteer means. SMH
The Great Reset will need enforcers. The USA just weaponized the IRS and advertised for them to carry and not be afraid to use their weapons.
I pray I’m wrong but too much foolishness going on to dismiss the globalist agenda and goals.
CNS: The crazy fringe of the Republican party has taken over. They’re not even right-wing anymore, just totally unhinged loony toons, and the fact that prominent senators are repeating what is clearly nonsense just reflects the decline in sanity in what was one the GOP. Sadly, you seem to have fallen very far down the rabbit hole.
This particular pile of BS is so outrageous, even the New York Post is pushing back against it: IRS saves guns for ‘serious criminal activity,’ says retired agent
You probably won’t read this or believe it if you do, but anyway… Tucker Carlson’s dangerous lie that Biden is targeting his audience with “87,000 armed IRS agents”
Keep this in mind: You Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox’s Lawyers
I had no idea just how bonkers 70+ million Americans were until I moved to Cayman.
well said cns!
You believe Media Mattets? Ha ha ha. They are fake news propaganda and a fake left wing non profit so BS on your source.
NPR is another fake news liberal democratic globalist cabal that needs to be defunded.
I fear that since you use these front organizations as truthful sources that your journalistic judgement is impaired and you are not a partisan political hack.
XXXX
CNS: This is why I also included the NYP link. You can’t get more populist right-wing than that, so I hoped you might read it and it might give you pause.
I am not posting any link to Infowars but it explains a lot about your views if you think that is a reliable source. I wish I could persuade you that Alex Jones is a truly horrible person and straight-up conman but I don’t know how. There are plenty of clips on YouTube of his recent defamation trial.
@10:13 and CNS:
Let’s consider looking at the fringe loons on the other side of the coin.
Crazy fringe and totally unhinged loony toons exist on both sides of the aisle. Two cases in point: On May 17th, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled, “Revoking Your Rights: The Ongoing Crisis in Abortion Care Access”. Democrat Aimee Arrambide, executive director at Avow Texas, was invited by the Democrats to provide witness testimony at the hearing. (Avow Texas is a non-profit whose mission is to “secure unrestricted abortion access.” That alone is a frightening idea.)
When asked if Arrambide agrees “that men can become pregnant and have abortions,” Arrambide responded with an enthusiastic “Yes.” (SMH) No Democrats challenged her statement.
And then there are those who are fighting for individuals born as biological males to be able to compete with biological females in girl’s and women’s sports. Many girls and women athletes have already been devastated by this unfair competition. These particular instances of BS are so outrageous as to give pause to doubt the sanity of those proffering and supporting the BS. The non-fringe moderates in the Democratic party are appalled at the insanity overtaking their party.
In regard to the new hiring of 87,000 IRS agents, there is no good hard evidence that all or even a substantial number of them will be armed. What is puzzling is that it seems that the USA wants a swarm of IRS agents to extract every tax ha’penny, yet will not put an equal emphasis to do what the Cayman Islands has thus far done a pretty good job of doing and that is to protect the borders from illegal intruders.
To be fair, America is chock full of raving loonies and it ain’t just the Republicans. Regardless the party, the loonies and their supporters are bent on exporting their toxic policies and insanity to the world, including Cayman Islands.
Be watchful and beware.
CNS: THere have always been fringe loonies on both sides of the political divide and in every country. However, in the US it’s only in the Republican party that the fringe (the MAGA crowd) has taken over, hopefully temporarily.
@5:44+CNS:
Fringe concepts: The Election was stolen!” and “Men can get pregnant”.
In both instances of insanity I cited in my earlier comment, the Democratic Party fully supports and promotes the insanity. It was the party leaders who invited a “Men can get pregnant” purveyor to testify in CONGRESS. The thinking behind the concept “Men can get pregnant” is no less insane than “The election was stolen”. The Democratic Party is also fighting against those who are trying to bar biological males from competing in women’s and girl’s sports. Just these instances are enough to make it abundantly clear that loonies have come from the fringes and have taken over BOTH parties. Yes, HOPEFULLY temporarily, but that hope looks very dim right now. Regardless the pressing issues of the economy, foreign policy, trade, a threatened dollar, healthcare, border security, the environment, crumbling infrastructure, etc, the loudest dialogue and the critical focus of BOTH parties is reduced to mainly one issue: Trump or no Trump. This issue has taken up most of the space in the brains of the leaders of BOTH parties. The sad thing is that the attention of the voters is focused on that dialogue rather then the far more urgent issues.
The chilling question is: How much will the insanity from the USA infect the Cayman Islands?
Another cadre of under-educated men and women with “authority”!
Welcome to the gang mentality, Regiment.
Sig. RCIPS & CBC,
Can they be trained to run speed traps on our roads?.
nope…our archaic traffic laws prevent that.
and so much more,” Roper said?????
Drop all the foolish army fatigues. What is their purpose really? Is it that they have this urge for some sense of belonging to a cause. If so, go and build houses and roads, sort out the dump, cook for and deliver some meals to the needy and help in disasters as is perhaps their main purpose. Drop the soldier pretense and all the nonsense that comes with it. White t-shirt and jeans is all you need wear and go get your hands dirty.
We need more DOE officers that will actually enforce our laws
Get them over to Kyiv asap.
?…they would not last 5 mins in a real world combat situation.
Preparing for war are we?
Nope, preparing for independence
@10:41:
Good points.
But the camo looks SOOO damn kewl. Plus, it makes the wearers feel all big up, like Rambo.
Now back to the real world outside Caymanistan: Most non-combat search and rescue teams and non-combat emergency/disaster responders wear very brightly-coloured outerwear/vests/jackets (most commonly neon orange, bright red, electric blue, or chartreuse, with reflective trim often added) and certainly NOT camouflage. I fully agree: the camo IS entirely pointless (and quite inappropriate) if the Regiment’s primary duty is to act as disaster/emergency responders.
Well done, proud of these men and women who are actually doing something to help their community. Plenty of people on here will criticize them, but at least they’re helping.
Maybe they will, but this has not happened yet.
Pretty sure they were out during Eta and Grace and delivering aid during Covid, I know, because they brought my family food and supplies when we needed it.
They were, I saw them
Remember when our government leaders were forcibly shoving the new port project down our throats? It took significant amount of effort by the a few noble citizens of this country, to organize and educate the rest of us enough that we eventually pushed back with protests and a call for referendum. And even after we pushed back, remember how government coerced government employees (telling them to stay out of it), used deceitful public “meetings” claiming to educate us on the project, questionable social media tactics (remember the hundreds of mysterious “thumbs up” votes for every post that supported the port project?), etc.?
For these reasons, I don’t trust this whole idea of a “regiment”. The same government that pushed for the port are the ones that came up with the regiment. Who is to say that one day, when our government leaders again try to convince us that they know best and we should just sit back and shut up because we’ve already given them mandate to do what they please when we elected them, who is to say that this regiment won’t be the line between what government wants to do, and what the people want government to do?
when to they get to train with their rubber knives?
have they achieved pussy-willow status yet?
At least they are doing something instead of sitting on a couch criticizing others.
ha…that like saying our civil service is doing something…..
I believe the reasoning behind the camo gear so they can sneak up on those pesky green iguanas?
obvious questions… how much are they getting paid and how much is this nonsense costing cig?
Not sure how much they’re getting paid, but they seem to already feel that they are God’s gift to humanity.
That uniform sure makes them feel extra special and extra bold, but I cannot be sure the ones I’ve encountered have passed grade school, much less high school.
obvious answer – too much…
We really have to keep an eye on this Regiment. They were doing some type of training by myself house, specifically on a PRIVATE (not public) road — they had no authority to be their in the first place.
And one of the Regiment guys was asking me all these questions, as if he had some authority to question me like a criminal — I got a glimpse of the precursor to future arbitrary-unlawful abuse of authority.
I calmly brushed him off, as I could not take him seriously and I did nothing that legally required or obligated questioning about my private residence — this guy was clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed.
It appears that the Regiment has not yet understood the power of sections 8 (no punishment without law) and 9 (privacy rights) our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, much less common courtesy.
However, if this Regiment tries the same overreaching tactics creeping towards infringing human rights and fundamental freedoms, they will be sure to be served after proceedings are issued.
We need to keep an eye on this Regiment, because it seemed that this fellow felt as if he had some type of power because of his uniform.
Thus far I’m super not impressed. They need to come better than my family witnessed. If I wasn’t so busy, they would have gotten a letter before action.
* Forgive some bad grammar. Autocorrect had a mind of its own. Busy. No time to correct.
Ok big man, calm down there, “overreaching tactics creeping towards infringing human rights and fundamental freedoms, they will be sure to be served after proceedings are issued”. Sounds like you got a law degree online!
I wouldn’t worry too much about what these new recruits are capable of after “two weeks of intensive basic training”!
Miss Cayman contestants train longer than that to parade across a stage while waving to the crowd!
Your fears are quite founded. The Island’s need for a fully militarised Regiment with weapons-training, drills, camo uniforms, rank-and-file organisation and deployment etc etc is as questionable now as the day Alden agreed to it, and is not just for emergency disaster relief assistance rendering, rescuing cats up trees and helping little old ladies cross the street- there is something more insidious happening here- and any incident where these guys start to think their pips, stripes and uniform make them somehow beyond normal behavour, we need to alert the Governor accordingly. Do not though think that his downcast eyes in response signals an acquiescence that his Regiment is now ‘too big for its boots’ attitude-wise and he will ‘see to it’, but rather that control of his Regiment might now be beyond his remit or ability to control it…
It wasn’t really military training if they didn’t get to shoot rifles. Disaster response is great but not especially military. The camouflage is pointless for this reason.
It’s a good thing that they don’t have firearms. Imagine these morons running around with guns: that would be disastrous.
Oh they do have guns…
The camoflauge is needed during an emergency response in order to hide from the victims in need of aid, so that they are not overwhelmed by people looking for help.
With flying tree branches and construction materials, the camoflauge also makes them harder to hit.
Al Catraz You’re too funny.
very insightful