Ten Years of Success

Apart from the Romanian hosts, Hungarian, Slovak and Ukrainian soldiers from the other nations of the Tisza battalion also participated in the exercise. During the VIP day – on which Romanian Defence Minister Corneliu Dobritoiu and Lt.-Gen. Dr. Zoltán Orosz, the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff were also present – the soldiers of the multinational engineer battalion demonstrated how they build a floating bridge, run a ferry site and if needed, how they rescue people who had fallen into the water or had been left stranded on the far bank of the river.

The participants of the event saw the military equipment and vehicles in service with the Romanian armed forces and the disaster management directorate. Additionally, the hosts also demonstrated how they set up and furnish a refugee camp.

After seeing the exercise, Lt.-Gen. Zoltán Orosz told us that this year’s event has been a good example of the ten-year success story of Blonde Avalanche exercises. He added that next year the Slovaks will be the lead nation of the battalion, so Exercise Blonde Avalanche will be organized by Hungary’s northern neighbor in 2013.

Lt.-Col. Levente Tábi, the military technology chief engineer of the HDF Joint Force Command informed us that on seeing the success of this four-nation cooperation, Serbia also announced its intention to participate in Exercise Blonde Avalanche next year.

Photos by the author