More Troops To Depart For Afghanistan

In April, the Hungarian Defence Forces’ role in Afghanistan has increased as a result of two new missions. The first rotation of the HDF Air Mentor Team (AMT) and Hungarian soldiers for the NATO ISAF Combat Service Support (CSS) Logistics School will begin their tour of duty this month in the Asian country.

The task of the HDF AMT is to conduct theoretical and practical flying training for combat helicopter crews with the air force of the Afghan National Army, participate in unit-level maintenance of helicopters, and mentor this activity. According to plans ten soldiers – five officers and five non-commissioned officers – will serve in four-month rotations in the Kabul-based mission that will last for one year. The personnel have been transferred from the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base, they will begin service on April 15 in Afghanistan.

The other new mission of the Hungarian Defence Forces to start in April is the special team mentoring the logistics personnel of the German-led Logistics School in Khabul, that will help the work of Afghan trainers conducting six-week special basic courses in five areas – maintenance, supply, transport, cooking, driving.

In addition to mentoring, the duties of the special team taking over the tasks of specialist training – for the time being, in the Kabul Training Centre – also include the establishment of training requirements and the working and living conditions of next rotations. It is an interesting feature that in the history of the Hungarian Defence Forces’ missions, it is the first time their activities are focused on conducting special operational trainings instead of support and service. The Logistics School has 25 students, of which 17 soldiers are delegated by the Hungarian Defence Forces for six months to the institution the headquarters of which is in Kabul.

The Hungarian soldiers – led by Lieutenant Colonel Gábor Sági, commander – completed their training in Szolnok in March.

The relatives and families of the soldiers to depart were also invited to the farewell ceremony of the two missions, held on April 12 in Szolnok. Before his speech, General László Tömböl, Chief of Defence Staff, MoD asked for a minute of silence, standing at attention, in commemoration of the Polish air crash in which the president of the country, the chief of defence staff of the Polish army, the chiefs of the army and the navy, the commander of the special operations force, field bishops, and the commander of the Warsaw garrison were killed.

In his speech given on the occasion of saying farewells to departing soldiers General Tömböl noted that in recent weeks there is a farewell or a welcome back ceremony almost every day, when they can salute troops returning from missions or say their goodbyes to soldiers going abroad to perform the Hungarian Defence Forces’ peacekeeping duties.

– I might say that it is almost a routine task. But owing to the danger lurking around them, soldiers have to avoid doing a routine job. This is what you have been taught by those who prepared you – said the chief of defence staff, who also noted that the task of the members of these two teams is entirely new in the life of the Hungarian Defence Forces. By supporting the training of the soldiers of the Afghan National Army, the objective of both teams is to facilitate the stabilisation of this army and help them take over tasks from soldiers of the international community.

In the opinion of General Tömböl, these tasks are not easy, for we have to train the officers and non-commissioned officers of a country where there has been no such training for decades. Everything has to be started from the beginning in order that we can attain the objective, the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan, beginning in the summer of 2011. The farewell ceremony for the troops of the two new missions of the Hungarian Defence Forces in Afghanistan ended with the ’Szózat’.