45th Anniversary salute

PRECISE?with their every move, pristine with their colourful uniform, dozens of troops and unarmed units dazzled cheering Barbadians with a memorable 45th anniversary Independence parade.
On a sun-baked morning at the island’s Bridgetown sea port, hundreds of patriotic Barbadians, wearing the national blue and yellow colours, seized almost every vantage point to witness the annual military parade of national uniformed groups.
 Parade commander Lieutenant-Colonel Ricardo Vickers, gave the parade 9.5 on a scale of ten.
“I am happy with the execution. It went like clockwork,” he said.
Before an audience that included acting Governor General Elliott Belgrave, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, Chief Justice Marston Gibson and Barbados Defence Force Chief of Staff Alvin Quintyne, 75 officers and 933 from other ranks responded to every command from Vickers.
The parade was conducted in five phases but it was phase three that comprised four segments of the march past that seemed to stir everyone’s attention. The armed units, with Vickers leading the way ahead of the first detachment which comprised of the Coast Guard led by Roleric Sobers, followed by the land forces of the Defence Force, under the helm of Andrew Skeete.