A Commander Can Be Successful Only If His Men Make Him Such

Being maximally satisfied with the six-month performance of Hungarian troops, the commanders of the ISAF Train Advise and Assist Command North (TAAC-N) pinned the NATO non-article 5 medals on the Hungarian soldiers’ uniforms.

The recipients were decorated for their work done by high professional standards in an international environment, while being deployed with one of the world’s most dangerous missions in one of the most dangerous countries of the world. Brig.-Gen. Harald Gante, the German commander of TAAC-N presented the medals to the commander, deputy commander and chief of staff of the Hungarian contingent. Col. Paul S. Sarat, the US Deputy Commander of TAAC-N presented the medals to the advisors and Col. Ulf Haussler, the German Chief of Staff of TAAC-N to the soldiers of the close protection and convoy escort teams.

In his speech, Gen. Gante summed up the results of the last six months and the successful and consistent work done by the Hungarian MAT in the interest of developing the capabilities of the Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) and the Afghan Border Police (ABP).
He highlighted their efforts, achievements and the professional training methods they have introduced. On Hungarian initiative, these methods are now applied by all ANSF advisory teams in the northern region in modernizing and planning the regional-level training of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

The commander expressed thanks to Hungary for having closely cooperated with the German partners all along its mission in Afghanistan.

Col. István Juhász, the commander of the contingent delivered a speech at the ceremony, in which he praised his soldiers and expressed thanks for their discipline, persistence and exemplary performance during the pre-deployment training and the operational tasks that they executed over the last six months. He pointed out that “a commander of a military organization can be successful only if his soldiers and subordinates work in a disciplined and effective way and do a good job."

The third rotation of the MAT spent 193 days outside the fences of the camp. During this time, they organized 54 training events and courses with various professional contents, and trained close to 1200 Afghan ANCOP and ABP personnel. They executed eight live fire exercises and covered more than 22,000 kilometers.

The senior Hungarian officer said special thanks for the continuous technical assistance and support given by the US partners during the deployment of Hungarian forces in Afghanistan. This enabled the Hungarians to execute their tasks safely, under state-of-the-art conditions.