They Did Their Best in the Extraordinary Situation

“I am very satisfied with what I have just seen here. I think this 27-strong detachment drawn from the personnel of the CBRN Defence Battalion has demonstrated its readiness to execute the whole spectrum of the CBRN defence troops’ tasks, that is, reconnaissance, identification and decontamination", Maj.-Gen. László Domján told us after seeing the exercise of the Székesfehérvár-based unit.

On Thursday, September 13 the commander of the HDF Joint Force Command inspected the visitors’ day training sessions of the Exercise “Pure Golden Field 2012" held between September 10-14 at the CBRN Defence Training base near Zemianske Kostol’any, Slovakia.

Maj.-Gen. Domján stressed that he was convinced by the high degree of professionalism that he experienced. “It was good to see that our soldiers did their best in this extraordinary situation too, while they were working with live chemical warfare agents (CWAs) under special circumstances, and in cases like these you may be carrying out even those procedures with trembling hands that you have been drilled in a thousand times before", the commander of the HDF JFC said.

He added that the cooperation between the Hungarian and Slovak CBRN defence personnel would continue. Apart from inspecting the exercise, the general held discussions with his Slovak colleague and told him that the Hungarian soldiers would participate in the international CBRN defence exercise which is to be held at the training base next year.

The soldiers of the HDF 93rd ‘Petőfi Sándor’ CBRN Defence Battalion have been visiting the Slovakian training base twice every year since 2007 in order to practice their special tasks with the use of live CWAs under safe circumstances. Lt.-Col. János Miklovich, the acting commander of the unit told us that so far they have laid emphasis on individual training, but now for the first time they were getting the soldiers practice their special tasks on squad level.

“For the soldiers, training with the use of live CWAs is a kind of physical and mental preparation. In this way, they can familiarize themselves with the physical characteristics of live toxic CWAs under controlled circumstances. Thus they get to know the types of safety regulations they need to comply with should they encounter these CWAs in real-world situations", the lieutenant-colonel told us.

Photos by the author