Major Henry L. Campbell - Bermuda Cadet Corps

It is not enough to say that there are positive alternatives without making the opportunities for these alternatives as appealing as possible and as easily available as we can to our young people. Fortunately the tax payers' contributions allow for the Bermuda Cadet Corps to be free to the cadets. We are pursuing having the programme available in as many schools as possible. This will require quite a bit of staffing which would make it possible to achieve that aim.

            First and foremost the executive team of the Bermuda Cadet Corps and I are committed to our mandate, which is to cultivate an interest in military activities and duties as a youth organization.   The Deputy Commandant, Captain Cleveland Simmons is also a former member of the Regiment Permanent Staff.  We are assigned a Full Time Instructor (FTI) by the Bermuda Regiment.  Our FTI is Colour Sergeant Jason Harrell who provides the day to day Regimental oversight and hands on support. We have a team of part time regiment NCOs and Bermuda Cadet Corps NCOs and Officers that make up the training and administrative personnel that execute the programme with eagerness and professionalism.

            Discipline, team building, problem solving and pure clean fun are just some of the skills nurtured and mastered through our four (4) star programme. This is the syllabus for the various levels of training as set out by Headquarters, Frimley Training Centre, Camberley, U.K. This is a system of achieving certain skills in a methodical sequence, which leads to graduating to a higher Star level. This does not necessarily correspond with the rank structure, which will be awarded based on a separate leadership and man-management test.

            The Corps is the window to future service.  It has encouraged many over the years to join not only the Regiment but also other uniformed services.  Today the interest in the uniform services is minimal and we are hiring more staff from overseas.

            The recruitment age will start at 12 years of age (M2 students) up to 18 years. For our Middle School cadets there can be opportunities to attend boarding schools in Canada and the United Kingdom where there are cadet organisations, which operate on the identical or similar programmes.  RidleyCollege is very popular in St. Catherine's, Ontario, Canada. FloridaAirAcademy is also popular with Bermudians. There is also a strong youth affiliation with two of the Bermuda Regiment's most historical affiliates, The Royal Anglian Regiment in the U.K. and The Lincoln and Welland Regiment in Canada.

            Several of our young adult Bermuda Cadet Corps members swapped their green berets for Bermuda Regimental blue berets this past January; thus graduating into full military service.  Two of them received their promotions to L/Cpl this summer. These recruits were able to apply the discipline learned in the Bermuda Cadet Corps.   Others have embarked on higher learning and either entered university programmes or have returned to schools of higher learning in order to complete or take additional courses.

            Our future planning - the training team is looking towards future events that will see Bermuda's Cadets possibly travelling to Canada, the Caribbean and/or U.K., for joint training exercises with their counterparts in these regions.  These exercises will have our young people using their skills attained during their training camps here in Bermuda, while learning new skills like - survival training, river crossings to name a few. 

            Up and coming potential Officers will be sent to the Cadet training facility in the U.K to qualify for promotion to Cadet Officer after successful completion of the Advanced Instructors' Course.               

            I would like to close with this extract from the gov.bm-Government Home page-Defence -About Us:  The Bermuda Regiment continues to provide the people of Bermuda with a wide array of social benefits. The Regiment's first most visible contribution to Bermuda is that people from Bermuda's different racial and social spheres are caused to have strong successful social interaction of a national task. The second contribution is to expose young men - some for the first time - to a disciplined structured environment with the standard of discipline somewhat higher that that which they may already be familiar. Within the Bermuda Regiment and regardless of their racial backgrounds, Bermudians are taught and practiced in functioning as a team. This experience of military teambuilding helps build better race and human relations.

            I believe these statements will always be relevant for the future of Bermuda and the Bermuda Cadet Corps allows us the opportunity to introduce this in the early stages of our young people's development. I cannot over-emphasize the life-long benefits to our youth of membership in the Bermuda Cadet Corps.