Tradewinds 2018 wraps up

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A Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) marine participates in a Tradewinds 2018 military training exercise in June 2018. (BIS)

Participants from 22 countries involved in the 2018 Tradewinds training program got a chance to put all the skills and information they learned into real-time practice Wednesday morning.

The program, which took one year to plan and three weeks to execute, provided extensive training in combatting transnational crime and humanitarian disaster relief.

The massive exercise culminated with a simulated task force tactical operation executed at the South Beach Pools.

The exercise was replete with helicopter landings, simulated bombs, gunfire and civilian extractions.

Participants included Caribbean countries, the United States (US), Canada and Mexico.

Officials from Columbia and Costa Rica were observers at this year’s three-week training program.

Both countries will join the program in 2019.

About Theo Sealy

Theo Sealy is an award-winning journalist who serves as senior broadcast reporter and weekend TV news anchor at Eyewitness News. He has achieved several career milestones, including his work as a field contributor with CNN, his coverage of four consecutive general elections, his production of several docuseries and his Bahamas Press Club Awards win for “Best Television News Story” in 2018.