Béla Szabó
Joint Combined Exchange Training 2012
2012. július 23. 9:15
On July 18–19, 2012, Hungarian and US Special Forces soldiers executed parachute jumps jointly from a US MC-130 transport aircraft at the HDF 59th “Szentgyörgyi Dezső” Air Base.
A Dead Soldier Is Not an Enemy
2012. április 18. 13:33
“Soldiers! We are standing here, bowing our heads deep in front of the opened grave. We have come here to pay our old debt to you. This is something that is due to every Hungarian soldier” – said Defence Minister Dr. Csaba Hende in the 2nd Hungarian Central Military Cemetery located at the edge of Gremyache-Rudkino, Russia on April 13. The Minister attended the ceremonial reburial of five Hungarian soldiers who had fallen in World War II.
Joint US–Hungarian Training at Táborfalva
2012. február 20. 9:52
Joint US–Hungarian training for the tasks in the area of operations, and HMMWV driving practice – the HDF 34th ‘Bercsényi László Special Operations Forces Battalion of Szolnok has been combined with an operational detachment alpha (ODA) of the 4th battalion of the US 10th Special Forces Group, and is spending most of February in the military training area at Táborfalva. On Wednesday, February 15 Gen. Dr. Tibor Benkő, the Chief of the MoD Defence Staff also inspected the training program.
SOF Troops Recognized
2011. december 8. 10:51
The servicemembers of the HDF 34th ‘Bercsényi László’ Special Operations Forces Battalion who displayed outstanding bravery in a firefight in the theatre of war in Afghanistan received medals and recognitions in the presence of their relations on November 29 in Szolnok.
Hummers for the Special Forces
2011. július 27. 11:26
On Monday, July 18, the HDF 34th ‘Bercsényi László’ Special Operations Force (SOF) Battalion received 14 HMMWVs (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles). Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, the Ambassador of the United States of America to Budapest handed over the vehicles ceremoniously to Minister of Defence Dr. Csaba Hende at the ‘Lt. Ittebei Kiss József’ Helicopter Base, Szolnok.
On Trackless Roads
2011. március 15. 9:32
A new mission abroad is always an enormous challenge: you are about to start out on a trackless road, there are a lot of unknown factors, and often you can see only in retrospect whether the consequences of your decisions were good or bad. This is especially true if your contingent deploys in the crossfire of continual attacks in a war zone where it is often unclear who is on your side.
On Hot Spots
2011. február 13. 10:50
In addition to deploying their largest contingents to prioritized crisis zones, the Hungarian Defence Forces also participate in crisis response operations (CRO) in several other hot spots around the world. Although most of these missions, which are running mainly in Africa and the Middle East, involve only a few peacekeepers or a number of officers posted to hold individual positions, they are by no means less significant than the “large ones”.
In the Desert, on the Beach
2011. február 7. 8:00
Sand and stone deserts with temperatures above +40 Celsius degrees for most of the year, barren mountains and one of the most beautiful beaches in the world: this is the Sinai Peninsula. Hungarian peacekeepers have been serving for 16 years in this fascinating region which has seen so many wars.
Decades of Opposition
2011. január 31. 10:38
Cyprus. If we browse through holiday brochures, it looks like some island of love, a popular holiday destination for Hungarian tourists, but on reading the daily (political) news, it turns out to be one of the oldest crisis zones in the world, a scene of high political tension to this day.
State-Builders
2011. január 26. 17:42
International public opinion is still extremely divided over the independence of Kosovo. The new state has numerous unresolved issues within its borders, so the multinational NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) –including a Hungarian contingent – is deployed in Kosovo to bring peace into the daily lives of the population.