History
The military of Belize dates back to 1817, when the Prince Regent Royal Honduras Militia, a volunteer organization, was founded; this militia became the Belize Volunteer Guard of the British Territorial Army. The BDF was founded in 1978 following the disbanding of the Belize Volunteer Guard and the Police Special Force the year before.
After Belize achieved independence in 1981 the United Kingdom maintained a deterrent force (British Forces Belize) in the country to protect it from invasion by Guatemala (see Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory). During the 1980s this included a battalion and No. 1417 Flight RAF of Harriers. The main British force left in 1994, three years after Guatemala recognised Belizean independence, but the United Kingdom maintained a training presence via the British Army Training and Support Unit Belize (BATSUB) and 25 Flight Army Air Corps until 2011 when the last British Forces left Ladyville Barracks, with the exception of seconded advisers. The BDF Maritime Wing became part of the Belizean Coastguard in November 2005.
Read more about this topic: Belize Defence Force
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)