Cheques totaling $1 million each were handed over on Tuesday by Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force, Commodore Gary Best, to family members of two soldiers who were slain in the line of duty in 2004 and 2008 respectively.
A GDF press release yesterday said that the disbursement of the funds was made possible by the Guyana government.
In 2004, Lance Corporal Shemton Dodson was shot and killed while on an operation in Buxton, East Coast Demerara. He was survived by two children, a ten-year-old son and a daughter aged nine. Both minors were recipients of $300,000 each, which was put into Fixed Deposit accounts at the Bank of Nova Scotia and would only be accessible after the children would have attained the age of eighteen.
And Corporal Ivor Williams was killed in late January this year when the army vehicle in which he was travelling came under attack on the Buxton railway embankment. In addition to other benefits, his mother Oret Pitman received $100,000, which was donated by the GDF Corporals’ Club.
Meanwhile, the Chief-of-Staff said that the GDF is in the process of developing a physical site in memory of its fallen heroes and preparations will begin soon on the construction of a memorial at the roundabout site at Base Camp Ayanganna.
