Having the Grenadier Guards run around in the forest hardly sounds like the most environmentally friendly thing Britain could do in Belize right now. And the codename..oh dear.
Back in the day 'special jungle training' included a stay on the appropriately-dubbed St George's Caye, an army-only atol which functioned as a sort of Camouflage Club 18-30, equipped with windsurfing kit and, well, so on. (I seem to remember pedalos, but I surely must have imagined them.)
A former colleague of mine — 'Colonel Bob' — famed in the tabloids for having more or less single handedly taken on the dastardly Serbs in '95 with his Cheshire regiment, confessed over a beer to me that he had once brought together a bunch of northern Belizean drug dealers and the Parachute Regiment in a target practice exercise that overwhelmingly favoured the men in maroon berets.
As well as helping to rid this region of scumbags, Colonel Bob also played a significant and largely unsung role in helping London win its bid to host the Olympic Games of 2012.
He is now a Conservative-Brexiteer member of this most awkward, yet soon-to-be-over of Parliaments.
His most recent contribution to the debate before a December 12 election was finally settled, occurred on Monday: "As I understand it, the leader of the Liberal Democrats said that if we had a second referendum, she might not agree with its result. I wonder whether that is true."
My very first memory of Belize — crossing the bridge over the Rio Hondo on the first of April, 1988, includes a vision of its custodians, airborne forces whose appearance made me think (and this is probably a generational thing) of...
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