Continuous Presence is Needed

Their first and perhaps most important duty is to guard Camp Pannonia. On most days of the week, this task is executed by a Montenegrin platoon of the company, which is augmented with Afghan guards. Everyone is entitled to one rest day per week, so the Hungarian troops are also assigned basic-level guard duties in the camp for a day each week.

The FP company has the primary task of patrolling the main routes across the province. These days the unit conducts this “presence patrolling" mostly in conjunction with the Afghan National Police (ANP) – this activity is a symbol of the Hungarian troop presence around the camp and in the town of Pol-e Khumri.

The FP company’s third area of responsibility involves VIP and convoy escort tasks. Depending on the current security situation in Baghlan Province, several convoys with various missions set off from Camp Pannonia each day. The FP company is present everywhere regardless of the type of the given mission, which may involve providing escorts for liaison teams, tasks to be executed by the CIMIC section, logistic transportation missions or the movement of the participants of negotiations/meetings or VIPs.

During their trips, the personnel of the company often have to travel in full combat gear for several hours on trackless roads. In heats of 35-40 degrees Celsius, covered all over by dust, the turret gunners stand on the top of the vehicles behind their machine guns, always staying focused and being ready to react to an attack on the column in any moment. In order to ensure undisturbed negotiations, on reaching the destination the FP company closes off the site and secures it. Only well-trained and disciplined soldiers can execute these tasks to full extent…

 
 Text and photo: PRT PAO