Efforts continue to have Caymanian-only regiment
(CNS): Major General Mark Lancaster, who helped to establish the Cayman Islands Regiment, made a flying visit to the islands at the weekend to discuss the “strategic development of the unit” with senior officials. Lord Lancaster, a member of the House of Lords and Honorary Colonel of the CIR, is helping with succession planning and efforts to make enlistment into the local military force 100% Caymanian.
Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly said, “Lord Lancaster has been instrumental in shaping the Cayman Islands Regiment, and we are grateful for his unwavering commitment and being a champion of such. This visit provides a valuable opportunity to strengthen our vision of a fully Caymanian Regiment, ensuring its resilience and leadership for generations to come.”
The goal is to bolster local involvement to ensure its future growth and sustainability.
Lord Lancaster began his visit on Friday morning with breakfast hosted at Government House with members of Hazard Management Cayman Islands and the Ministry of Home Affairs. He also attended various exercises performed by the Cayman Islands Regiment on base and satellite locations before leaving on Sunday.
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Category: Local News
As an Officer from a Commonwealth Country who ran a reserve unit such as this, I can tell you that if you want it done right, it takes a lot of work, plus adding a few regular army full-time staff.
If you leave it to the locals, then the kit will start to disappear, regular attendance will drop, and morale and discipline will cease to exist. It’s all a great lovely pipe dream, but without proper oversight by people who know what they are doing, it will fail…regardless of the kit and pay you throw it.
Until such time as it is equipped with artillery and heavy armour, the regiment is of limited utility. Should, say, Aruba invade the Brac, what would it do?
Institute the draft at age 16 for boys and girls.
I want to see hard push ups sweaty push ups!
Where’s the Jolly Roger 🏴☠️?
You are worth the watching.
I think the Regiment(National Reserves)should be mandatory for all healthy Caymanians, females and males to serve at least 1 month a year from ages 18-45 like in most countries. Instead of sending able bodied men to prison for a minor offense, then have them serve 3 months in the Regiment so they can learn discipline, structure, team work, and serving our country. This program could also involve the Coast Guard and Department of Community Services.
A punishment battalion! Brilliant!
Not a punishment battalion, but rather a rehabilitation corp.
Caymanians, that I assume will be Caymanian Status Holders as well. I do believe those with PR should also be eligible to serve.
They are probably mostly status holders.
If you want 100% Caymanian, institute a draft.
I am British.
Wanted to apply when I first heard about it 2019?
Thought of giving help during hurricanes etc seemed worthy. Turns out I can’t.
Good!
Nae luck Cpl. Jones
I think the Brac needs a seperate branch of the Regiment. Why wait for the Grand Regiment to come over while security goes to heck.
The Brac did have one, the original Commanding Officer set it up in order to support the Sister Islands, but I guess a lack of funding/recruiting/support has meant that it’s died off.
Brackers know that they are Caymanian too, right? They aren’t a separate breed of people, though they like to think themselves as.
I’m a Bracka.
I’m not a tim horton’s loving “Caymanian” who lives in an exclusive gated community, mingles with only expats and shuns potential hires who come to an interview with a Caymanian accent.
What a real racist shame. Some of the Leaders of the newly founded Regiment are quite seasoned British men who have donated so much of their skill, time, and expertise here as just amazing expert expats! So, WHY toss them out? Why? Should we disregard all the respect that D. Haines gave our police? The helicopter experts that fly in our skies? All the expats that kept our islands safe during disasters? This is too racist to digest. Must be an election year? Oh brudda.
Caymanians, that I assume will be Caymanian Status Holders as well. I do believe those with PR should also be eligible to serve.
Well, the politicians got rid of the first Commander once he had set the whole thing up because he was a white expat, seems pretty stupid when he was willing to help do it for us! – That said, this Government has got rid of a lot of white expats over the last 3 years, and we’ve lost experienced people and what are we left with?
Jamaicans.
Bahahaha do you even know what racism is
We don’t need a territorial infantry of the British Armed Forces. They can’t even hobble together a website. Neither can the Coast Guard. Millions upon millions flushed away on these ego agencies with almost nothing in the plus column to show for their existence. Just outflows.
Caymanians are eligible as UKOT citizens to join the British military, shouldn’t it be reciprocal?
Thanks to Mac and a total failure in our organs of good governance, thousands of Caymanians are not BOT citizens. Just sayin.
How so?
He granted status to 2,850 people without checking that they were British subjects. They all became Caymanian without being a BOTC, and so ineligible to hold a Cayman passport. Their spouses and children then became Caymanian based on their relationship, without being a BOTC.
Only a BOTC can hold a Cayman Passport.
Now that many thousands of Caymanians are not BOTC’s they cannot have a Cayman Passport – and must first apply for Naturalisation. Many are not eligible, whether because of criminality or absences.
Caymanians need only fill in the UK Naturalisation application, and pay the admin fee. Ghost Caymanians were given an amnesty period to regularize themselves. We can blame McKeeva for lots of other failures, but not failures of individual self-advocacy.
Not true.
A noble goal of some importance to internal security (provided the highest standards are maintained), but given the government itself cannot tell who is Caymanian from not Caymanian, and seems to even issue passports to people not entitled to them, while registering others to vote, good luck with that.
Discrimination right in your face. More medals Frano?
Oh, “discrimination,” you say? I’d call it “protection with flair”! We’re just making sure that our Caymanians get the first crack at something as prestigious as the Regiment. Can you imagine the chaos if we opened the floodgates to everyone? We’d have foreign nationals signing up left, right, and center just to secure cozy government contract! Before you know it, we’d have an entire regiment of folks whose only combat experience is battling for a spot on Seven Mile Beach!
As for the medals, well, if we handed them out like candy, maybe Frano would get one! But rest assured, this is no free-for-all.
You heard Lord Lancaster, the Cayman Islands Regiment is our local military force. So before you shout “discrimination” too loudly, let’s look at the facts. Non-nationals can’t join the U.S. military unless they have legal permanent residency, and it is the same for many other countries. So, protecting local jobs and military forces is hardly a new idea, and definitely not something unique to the Cayman Islands!
Just a little “protection,” my friend, not discrimination. So next time think before you respond through your “donkey”.
Ah, because of the hordes of Caymanians with combat experience. For a unit who has no official combayt role.
And a unit so massively oversubscribed here is a waiting list to join, because of all the foreigners taking Caymanians spots. Get the chip off your shoulder and the beam out of your eye – they don’t have very many people as it is – not the visit is to assess its future sustainability. Limiting it to Caymanians only you may as well rename it the Cayman Islands Platoon. .
Ever heard of Boot Camp? I sure as hell have. Any person can be trained to fill a position. Ask any military unit, anywhere around the world.
This is a unit that should be exclusively Caymanian.
Well, I served 16 years, so think so. The issue is not the training, it’s the number of people willing to serve. Unless you introduce conscription you can only train those that volunteer. If Caymanians are gagging to be part of the Regiment, why isn’t it overflowing?
Regiment is a joke at best. Another waste of government money.
They can and should at least be deputized as Special Constables – and support (and replace) various members of the existing RCIP.
“Regiment is a joke at best. Another waste of government money.” but yet you all are crying that you can’t participate LMFAO una is a bunch of jokers, go sign up for your own country’s military thanks!
Why is Una always getting brought into these conversations?
What, or whom, is the Mr? Mrs? “Una” of whom the natives speak?
I hope we don’t go to war then lol u need me then?
Beggars can’t be choosers.
That’s a misnomer in this day and age.