Army chief retiring
Published:Wednesday | June 30, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
AMID A massive deployment of soldiers in the Corporate Area and St Catherine to root out gangsters, the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) is preparing for a change in leadership with the retirement of Major General Stewart Saunders.
The army chief is set to retire in November.
Well-placed sources told The Gleaner that high among Saunders' prospective successors is Antony Anderson, who was recently promoted to brigadier.
It is understood that Colonel Rocky Meade, Lieutenant Milton Neath and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Pryce are also in the race for the top job.
A highly placed government source told The Gleaner that Saunders had signalled to the Defence Board at the start of 2010 that he intended to retire later this year.
"The meeting which discussed his pending retirement was held on February 17, 2010," The Gleaner was told by a reliable source, who disclosed that Saunders enjoys a "superb relationship" with the Golding administration.
"He was quite specific and clear in his desire to bow out of the army later in the year," the source added.
"He is not a controversial character, he is the type who goes with the flow," a government official said.
Tivoli assault not a factor
Another source revealed that Saunders' decision was conveyed to the Defence Board long before the Government imposed a state of emergency on the Corporate Area in May to flush out Tivoli Gardens don Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
The soldiers' incursion into Tivoli Gardens, which has morphed into a cobweb of curfews and house-to-house searches to net crooks and illegal guns, has been Saunders' most significant undertaking since assuming the helm from Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin.
Saunders, 55, took command as the ninth head of the JDF on October 27, 2007.
The title of chief of staff was changed to chief of defence staff by the Defence Board that month in keeping with the Cabinet-approved Strategic Defence Review, which sought to restructure the JDF for enhanced performance, as well as for congruence with international and regional protocol.
The JDF website said at his previous rank of colonel, Saunders, then a principal staff officer, served at the army headquarters as colonel general staff. Saunders frequently deputised as chief of staff, but his primary responsibility centred on policy implementation regarding operations, training, education, weapons and ammunition, among other portfolios.
A past school captain (head boy) of Jamaica College, graduating in 1973, Saunders joined the Jamaica Defence Force in July that year and was commissioned in the rank of second lieutenant in September. By September 1974, he successfully completed initial officer training at the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone, England.
Saunders was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in September 1975; captain in August 1978; major in September 1983; lieutenant colonel in March 1993; colonel in February 2001; and major general in October 2007.
A part-time university lecturer and holder of a master's degree in national security, Saunders was awarded the Medal of Honour for General Service with Mention in Dispatches, achieved for operational tours in Grenada from 1983-1985.
In 1991, Saunders received a second award, the Medal of Honour for Meritorious Service to the Jamaica Defence Force. He was appointed aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth II in October 2007.