“There Are Generations Missing From The Personnel Of The Command”

The HDF Joint Forces Command was established on January 1, 2007. Two and a half years have passed since then. How does it seem, has the JFC lived up to the expectations?

I can firmly say yes, it has lived up to the expectations! I also have to add that the Joint Forces Command of the Hungarian Defence Forces was set up in a way that there was no example of such organization in the armed forces of other countries. In other words, we had nothing to follow, nowhere to learn the experiences from, or copy a well-operating scheme. Therefore finding the solutions for the questions that arose required very serious thinking, professional competence and patience. When trying to create the organization and the structure that will be able to manage these tasks, we relied on the tasks and responsibilities we had known about in advance. Fortunately, we can say today that we have accomplished the task, the Command operates well and productively. Naturally, this does not mean that at the moment or in the near future there is or will be nothing that needs further improvement at the JFC. As challenges and assignments are changing, it requires various modifications at the Command as well, that are essential to the execution of newer tasks. Moreover, it also happened that we had to make a slight change in the organization based on our experiences, thus it has become more efficient and productive.

You have mentioned that at the time of the establishment of the JFC there was not a medium-level command of similar type and set of tasks in the NATO member states. Have the allied countries set up a similar system since then?

It was half a year ago, on January 15, that you took over the commander’s responsibilities from General (Eng.) László Tömböl, with whom you were working together at the top of the JFC for two years. Have you changed anything in the methods of your predecessor?

I think Gen. Tömböl will not take it as an insult if I say that we think similarly and have a similar opinion about many things. Probably this is why I use a lot of his methods. But one must also realize that each leader has his or her typical management style and method. Therefore I would rather say that the Joint Forces Command is heading in the direction designated by Gen. Tömböl back in 2007, the year of establishment. I am convinced that we do not have to divert from this direction, and with my leadership the JFC wants to reach the targets that were set back then.

What are your experiences after these six months spent at the top of the JFC?

All my experiences in the past six months were positive. I must say that at the Command, I am working with hard-working, prepared, and excellent professionals. Nevertheless, one must also see that unfortunately, there are generations missing from the personnel of the Command. At the JFC the average age is 32 years, while the average age of the servicemen of the subordinate military organizations is 30 years. Despite the excellently prepared and great personnel at the Command, there are still some deficiencies as regards the profession. Since those who have left the organization left the defence forces practically overnight, due to the reorganization processes, the military reform, or a number of other reasons. Therefore they could not transfer and pass on to the younger generation the knowledge and capabilities they had gained during their service. And it is primarily these young officers who feel the weight of this, for they have not had enough opportunies to see and carry out tasks in practice. This is why making up for all these deficiencies demands tremendous energies from us.

Most of the corps and organizations of the Hungarian Defence Forces are the subordinates of the JFC. It means that the majority of the approximately 2,000 troops on various missions are also serving in one of the subordinate corps of the Command. There are news that as more and more personnel go on mission, this causes problems in filling the foreign service positions.

The answer to this question has to be divided in two. There really are positions, primarily the special or the staff officers’ positions where it happens in some cases that voluntary application, that is application by submitting a form, is a problem. As regards the ’ordinary’ positions, that is the enlisted personnel, there are always lots of applicants for a given set of tasks, so besides the fact that filling up the necessary numbers does not cause any problem, we can even select from the applicants. It is fair to ask: what is the reason for the lack of professional personnel in many cases? On the one hand it is owing to the fact that at military organizations there are also lack of peace positions, and at the corps and the JFC as well the number of different service and specialized officers’ positions have dropped to such a minimum level in the past years that the organization itself cannot afford to miss soldiers while they are at a preparation course or on a mission. Moreover, there are other reasons as well, for instance the family of the soldier who is ready to go on mission says: you have been on foreign service two or three times in the past few years, you should now spend some time with us…

How can this problem be solved?

One of the – most important – things we can do is that we try to manage the lack of personnel with some kind of planning. In Székesfehérvár, at the Joint Forces Command my colleagues and I have settled this issue by selecting the persons to go on mission one and a half years before the actual departure. Therefore now the person concerned knows one and a half years in advance in which mission and in what position we are counting on his or her professional knowledge, thus the troops have enough time to prepare for the foreign service tasks, to settle their current issues, and prepare their families for the six months they will be away. With this step, we bring planning and predictability into the system.

Doesn’t it lose the voluntary nature of signing up for missions?

It is a difficult question, but it has to be said: the professional soldiers serving in the Hungarian Defence Forces must accept that it may happen that instead of serving at home, they have to perform their service duties far from our borders. In other words I could say that in the Hungarian military, there cannot be privileged people and privileged positions, there are no troops who go on missions only and no troops who serve only at home. I think speaking other languages and serving in missions have to be basic requirements for every professional soldier. They must accept that. Unfortunately, a part of the Hungarian soldiers still imagine that voluntary service means that signing up for service in missions and the selection process is basically an application system. In my opinion this is not the only way to interpret the principle of volunteering, for it can also work in a way when troops are going on missions after a consultation and finding out the intentions of the person in question. To put it another way: the interests of the organization and that of the individual are considered together.

It is the time of summer holidays at every corps. Where will the commander of the JFC be spending his holiday?

I believe it is the same for me as it is for the commanders of many military organizations: we think that we are needed all the time, we cannot go on holiday, and always must be on standby. Well, this year, because of the very heavy influence of my family, we are planning to spend four days on the shore of Lake Balaton. But I already told my wife that I will not be able to do anything there, so I will take my notebook with me and write my PhD thesis. You can imagine what her reply was… Since I joined the military, we were on holiday with my wife only once in the real sense, so it was time for another vacation.

After the summer holidays, in the second half of August, the preparations will begin for Deployment Direction, the largest tactical exercise of the year. Year after year, this exercise demonstrates a different capability of the Hungarian Defence Forces. If I am correct, this year’s exercise will be a really special one.

I am looking forward to the exercise with great expectations, and its implementation is very close to my heart. For last year I reported to Gen. Tömböl when Deployment Direction 2008 was still in progress that we should conduct the next exercise somewhere else than the Várpalota shooting range, since we have a so-called ‘hibernated’ capability we could include in the program as a new task for the troops. It is overcoming obstacles in water. Therefore in the framework of this year’s Deployment Direction exercise we would demonstrate not only the cooperation of the corps of the land forces and the air force but also the EOD and Warship Battalion, the engineering capability, and the infantry forces offered for international assignments. Our plans are that the corps participating in this year’s exercise will cross the water near Ercsi. With this we would reintroduce a capability that was hibernated to such an extent that since the BTR-80A combat vehicles were added to the system, that is since the second half of the ’90s, we have not peformed a similar task. These vehicles were not in the water in spite of the fact that they are able to swim just like their predecessors, the earlier BTRs could. Obviously, the service personnel responsible for these equipments have not been taught, trained or prepared for this task. Therefore I say that such an existing capability has to be utilized as well, and soldiers have to be taught how to cross a water. We started the preparations for the exercise in May and made good progress.

If I am right this assignment has internal conditions – namely the personnel must be prepared and capable of carrying out the task – , and on the other hand, there are also external conditions that do not depend on the Hungarian Defence Forces. Such as the water level of the Danube, for instance. What happens if the water level of the river is not suitable at the time of the exercise?

Just like in the case of every other exercise, we also prepare for exercise Deployment Direction 2009 bearing in mind that it can happen that the weather will hinder the implementation. If we conduct an exercise in the Bakony, only fog can impede our work, and usually this is what happens. But there it is possible to postpone implementation until the next day or wait one hour or two and we can fly or shoot. This exercise will be more complicated and difficult in a sense that if the water level of the Danube is not right, the implementation cannot be postponed because nothing changes in one or two hours or in one day’s time. This is why there is also a ’B version’ for this year’s Deployment Direction exercise: in case the water level of the Danube does not allow the troops to cross the river, the exercise will be conducted at the Várpalota shooting range. Naturally, the assignment will not be overcoming obstacles in water but we will be conducting a CREVAL review of the 5/1st battalion of the Debrecen brigade, that would have tasks in the river crossing exercise as well. Before obtaining the international capability, this unit – as an offered force – is now in a situation that we have to conduct its national CREVAL review.

In addition to Deployment Direction, what other major tasks can be expected this year?

I would like to put three priority tasks in the forefront. The first and most important one is that preparation for various missions has to continue. Air defence missiles also have to be treated as a priority task. In addition to that, we have to prepare for the 2010 exercise as well, which will be an international exercise to be conducted in Hungary in the framework of the MLF. We are already in the preparation phase of the work. All in all, I believe we will have a lot to do next year.

Will there be more changes in the coming years at the Joint Forces Command and the subordinate military organizations, or is there no need for further organizational changes?

I very much hope that there will be no more changes. Naturally, there still are some minor tasks that have to be executed. For example the assessment/analytical function of the Command has to be strengthened. Moreover, it would be practical to make the section dealing with mission-related tasks independent, and to make the command system more simple. But there is no need for more changes at the JFC. There is no need for organizational and structural changes in the military organizations either. But there is a need for correction. For example at the 43rd Signal and Command Support Regiment the repair/engineering capability we have outsourced recently has to be replaced. It is a similar correction than the one we did last year at the Szentes engineering battalion where we have reintroduced low-water bridge construction capability. I believe that in the future, stability, predictability, scheduling and planning will be essential, for the lack of these has resulted in a great number of personnel leaving the Hungarian Defence Forces and generations missing from the system. We miss professionals we have to replace by any means, but unfortunately, this will take years.