Camille Clarke

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy says the re­cent­ly es­tab­lished Naval As­sets Ac­qui­si­tions Com­mit­tee has made a re­quest for in­for­ma­tion to be­gin an ac­qui­si­tion cy­cle for long-range pa­trol craft in the 60 me­tre cat­e­go­ry. Sandy was ad­dress­ing at the T&T Air Guard Pass­ing Out Pa­rade on Wednes­day at the Ul­ric Cross Air Sta­tion, Pi­ar­co. "As an in­te­gral step to ac­com­plish­ing this task, your Gov­ern­ment has es­tab­lished a Naval As­sets Ac­qui­si­tions Com­mit­tee which has its man­date to re­view the mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty needs of this coun­try with the ob­jec­tive of strength­en­ing this coun­try's bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.

"These ves­sels will have the most up-to-date sen­sors and will con­tribute to our in­ter­dic­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ty against drugs and firearms traf­fick­ing," Sandy said. The dead­line for sub­mis­sions for the re­quest for in­for­ma­tion is to­day. Sandy said two more he­li­copters would be added to the fleet in the near fu­ture cre­at­ing a four-mem­ber fleet to boost aer­i­al sur­veil­lance. He said in han­dling of these ac­qui­si­tions, four pi­lots, two air­crew and ten tech­ni­cians have all un­der­gone train­ing in the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom and Italy. "It has be­come nec­es­sary to up­grade the Air Guard's cur­rent fixed-wing air­craft fleet of two C26-B air­craft," Sandy said.

In keep­ing with the pass­ing out, Sandy ad­vised the re­cruits to be proac­tive and face re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with pride and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Air Guard, Ty­rone Ro­dul­fo, told the re­cruits that join­ing the mil­i­tary was a life chang­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. "Es­pe­cial­ly when as in this case, the sit­u­a­tion is not one of nor­mal­cy but a state of emer­gency," Ro­dul­fo said. He said there were many sac­ri­fices which come with this vo­ca­tion such as time spent away from fam­i­ly and loved ones. Ro­dul­fo said there were op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vel­op­ment in this ex­pand­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, he spoke about miss­ing re­cruit Shizelle Her­nan­dez who had been re­port­ed miss­ing with­in months of her train­ing. Her­nan­dez re­mained miss­ing up to late yes­ter­day. Rel­a­tives, friends and well wish­ers packed the re­cep­tion area near the old hangar to sup­port loved ones. The 75 re­cruits' ex­e­cu­tion of the pre­ci­sion drill al­so proved to be very en­ter­tain­ing. Vashell Thomp­son re­ceived the Best Male Re­cruit while Jonelle Bar­row re­ceived the Best Fe­male Re­cruit.