BDF is a house that has been built brick by brick over the last five decades from 1977. I need not repeat the story of their very humble beginning, something many Westerners chose to refer to as a multifarious army. For the first five years, the establishment was so small that soldiers and officers knew each other throughout the country.
It begins with the 160 or so men that transitioned from what was known as Police Mobile Unit, a paramilitary wing of Botswana Police Force. The officers that helped establish BDF were all given a special medal known as the Founder Officer Member. FOM is no longer in existence as all the recipients have retired and a good majority of them have passed on.
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