Dr Garvin Heer­ah

There are cer­tain days in your life that nev­er leave you.

You re­mem­ber the sounds be­fore you re­mem­ber the words. The crack of gun­fire. The car bomb at Po­lice Head­quar­ters. The ur­gency in every ra­dio trans­mis­sion. The un­cer­tain­ty. The re­al­i­sa­tion that your coun­try, the na­tion you had sworn to de­fend, was un­der at­tack.

Fri­day, Ju­ly 27, 1990, was one of those days.

For most cit­i­zens, it be­gan as an­oth­er Fri­day. With­in hours, Trinidad and To­ba­go was thrust in­to the dark­est con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis in its his­to­ry. Armed in­sur­gents seized the Red House, took the na­tion’s lead­ers hostage, oc­cu­pied Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT), and de­clared war on the State.

For those of us in uni­form, there was no time for fear. There was on­ly du­ty.

I was serv­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard Air Wing. Like every mem­ber of the De­fence Force, we im­me­di­ate­ly un­der­stood that this was no or­di­nary se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent.

While his­to­ry of­ten re­calls the fierce gun bat­tles around Po­lice Head­quar­ters, the Red House and TTT, there were many oth­er bat­tles that nev­er made the front pages.

One of those bat­tles was at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. In­tel­li­gence re­ports raised con­cerns that in­sur­gents might at­tempt to seize the air­port. Had that hap­pened, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s prin­ci­pal gate­way to the world could have been shut down, dis­rupt­ing in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance and se­vere­ly com­pro­mis­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse.

Our Coast Guard Air Wing con­tin­gent—pi­lots, flight en­gi­neers, air­crew and air­men—was tasked with de­fend­ing the air­port.

We armed our­selves, se­cured the air­field and pre­pared to en­gage if nec­es­sary. Thank­ful­ly, the an­tic­i­pat­ed at­tack nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. Our mis­sion con­tin­ued as we launched tac­ti­cal flights, con­duct­ed aer­i­al re­con­nais­sance, sup­port­ed De­fence Force op­er­a­tions and main­tained sur­veil­lance over our mar­itime ap­proach­es.

The T&T De­fence Force demon­strat­ed ex­tra­or­di­nary pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Dis­ci­plined mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, su­pe­ri­or com­mand and con­trol, and co­or­di­nat­ed fire­pow­er re­stored con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der. To the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion, no sol­diers or Coast Guard per­son­nel lost their lives dur­ing di­rect com­bat with the in­sur­gents. That was not be­cause the threat was in­signif­i­cant, but be­cause of ex­cep­tion­al lead­er­ship, train­ing, courage and dis­ci­pline un­der fire.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice paid a far heav­ier price. Po­lice of­fi­cers con­front­ed heav­i­ly armed in­sur­gents in some of the most dan­ger­ous ur­ban com­bat in our na­tion’s his­to­ry. Some made the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice.

Yet there are oth­er he­roes whose sto­ries are sel­dom told. Mem­bers of the T&T Fire Ser­vice re­spond­ed while bul­lets still flew through Port-of-Spain, pre­vent­ing fires from be­com­ing an even greater na­tion­al cat­a­stro­phe.

Prison of­fi­cers main­tained con­trol of cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties de­spite They pre­vent­ed the prison sys­tem from be­com­ing an­oth­er front in the con­flict.

The at­tempt­ed coup brought death, de­struc­tion, fear and emo­tion­al scars that many fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to car­ry to­day.

But crises teach lessons that com­pla­cen­cy nev­er will.

The events ex­posed weak­ness­es in in­tel­li­gence shar­ing, com­mand struc­tures, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion. Those lessons be­came cat­a­lysts for re­form and helped shape to­day’s stronger na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture.

His­to­ry re­minds us that no democ­ra­cy is im­mune from threats. How­ev­er, I be­lieve an­oth­er at­tempt­ed coup would be con­sid­er­ably more dif­fi­cult to­day be­cause our in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ties, con­tin­gency plan­ning, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and joint op­er­a­tional struc­tures are far more re­silient than they were in 1990.

My great­est con­cern is whether we are al­low­ing the mem­o­ries of those who de­fend­ed our democ­ra­cy to qui­et­ly dis­ap­pear.

Every year, an­oth­er vet­er­an leaves the pa­rade of life: sol­diers. sailors. air­men. po­lice of­fi­cers. fire­fight­ers. prison of­fi­cers. pub­lic ser­vants. or­di­nary cit­i­zens who lived through ex­tra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances.

The time has come to pre­serve the lega­cy of Ju­ly 1990. The Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my, Po­lice Acad­e­my, Fire Ser­vice Train­ing School and Prison Ser­vice train­ing in­sti­tu­tions should in­cor­po­rate ded­i­cat­ed mod­ules on the at­tempt­ed coup, al­low­ing re­cruits to hear di­rect­ly from those who served. Lead­er­ship un­der pres­sure, cri­sis de­ci­sion-mak­ing and pa­tri­o­tism can­not be ful­ly un­der­stood from text­books alone.

I would al­so like to see a per­ma­nent 1990 Lega­cy Cor­ri­dor es­tab­lished at De­fence Force Head­quar­ters or the Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my, where pho­tographs, op­er­a­tional maps, news­pa­per head­lines and record­ed tes­ti­monies tell the sto­ry of the sol­diers, po­lice of­fi­cers, fire­fight­ers, prison of­fi­cers, air­men and pub­lic ser­vants who an­swered the call when democ­ra­cy it­self was un­der siege.

The fam­i­lies of po­lice of­fi­cers who died de­fend­ing the Re­pub­lic, and the in­no­cent civil­ians who lost their lives dur­ing those trag­ic days, al­so de­serve last­ing na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. Their sac­ri­fice helped pre­serve the free­doms we en­joy to­day.

Thir­ty-six years lat­er, I re­main proud to have served along­side some of the finest men and women this na­tion has ever pro­duced.

We did not wear our uni­forms seek­ing ap­plause. We wore them be­cause T&T called.

Now T&T must an­swer an­oth­er call.

Be­fore the last wit­ness­es fall silent, let us pre­serve their voic­es.

A na­tion that for­gets those who de­fend­ed its democ­ra­cy risks one day for­get­ting how pre­cious that democ­ra­cy tru­ly is.