Ahead of a Mission in Afghanistan: Training Goes on Until End of April

The “second half" of the pre-deployment training for the eighth rotation of the HDF OMLT is about to start. Maj. István Tóth – who is the designated commander of the contingent and deputy commander of an infantry battalion of the HDF 25th Klapka György Infantry Brigade of Tata – told us that the Hungarian troops who had volunteered for service with the OMLT have been preparing for the dangerous mission in Afghanistan since early November. They have completed a training program in Germany, and recently executed the required situational target practice on the Szomód garrison range of the Tata brigade. They fired their individual and collective infantry weapons at the target practice whose objectives were to enable them to master marksmanship techniques and to assess their readiness in situations closest to real life. (Our photos were taken at this stage!)

Maj. Tóth told us that currently 65 Hungarian troops are training to take part in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, but not all are going to deploy in the area of operations, as some of them are to remain in Hungary to form a reserve force. Most of the personnel in the contingent are drawn from the Klapka brigade (Tata), but several soldiers came to attend the training from the engineer regiment (Szentes), from the HDF Bakony Combat Training Center (Várpalota) and the Szolnok military units. Part of the team is already familiar with the tasks in Afghanistan because they have served with the OMLT or some other mission in the Central Asian country.

This time too, from May 2012 on the Hungarian troops are to do their six-month tour of duty together with a designated subunit of the US Ohio National Guard. According to plans, the US trainers will join the training program in mid-March, the commander of the OMLT-8 said, adding that the training of the contingent goes on until the end of April.

 Photo: 1st Lt. Andrea Demény