THE WATCH STAFF
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) recently commissioned three members of the fledgling Turks and Caicos Islands Regiment.
The officers, Capt. Dixie Smith, Lt. Jahiem Glinton and Lt. Earl Henry, were the second cohort of Marines from the reservist Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) Regiment to be trained at the British military academy, according to an April 1, 2022, story in the Turks and Caicos Weekly News. Their two months of instruction included a range of military skills and physical training.
“It was quite a unique experience … I definitely learned a lot,” Henry told Caribbean news provider Magnetic Media in a March 31 story online. “I definitely pushed my body to a unique limit. I never thought it was possible.”
(Pictured: Turks and Caicos Islands Regiment officers Lt. Earl Henry, left, Capt. Dixie Smith and Lt. Jahiem Glinton graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.)
The Turks and Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, are in U.S. Northern Command’s area of responsibility in the Caribbean.The officer cadets were commissioned at RMAS during a March 26 ceremony attended by the TCI government’s representative in
London, Tracy Knight; Lt. Col. Ennis Grant, commander of the TCI Regiment; and British diplomat Nigel Dakin, governor of the TCI, who acts as the
de facto head of state.
“The TCI Regiment may only be just over a year old, but our officers join a tradition that goes back to 1720,” said Dakin, a Sandhurst graduate, according to the Weekly News.
Smith is the first female officer of the TCI Regiment. Glinton and Henry are reservists.
Smith shared her experiences at Sandhurst on Facebook, where she encouraged women and young people to join the regiment, according to the Weekly News.
“The last eight weeks of my life have been truly transformational,” she wrote on the social media site. “To be a fully commissioned officer from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is such an amazing achievement.”
The TCI Regiment was formed in 2020 and is the country’s home defense force as well as a battalion within the British Armed Forces. Its mission is to help provide maritime and border protection, disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance. The reserve force, which has a core group of permanent staff, is the latest regiment in a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean after Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Montserrat.
When Dakin announced the plan for a regiment in December 2019, according to the Weekly News, he said his vision was for a “reserve force commanded, officered and staffed by men and women of the Turks and Caicos Islands.”
IMAGE CREDIT: TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS GOVERNOR’S OFFICE