Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Kris Bonet | Georgian Army Col. Roman Janjulia, Combat Training Center commander, and U.S. Army...... read more read more
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A national training center has been established in Georgia by the Georgian Armed Forces and U.S. Army Soldiers.
Team Lynx Soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division have mentored Georgian CTC observer/controllers to train and evaluate Georgian Armed Forces units at Norio and Vaziani Training Areas, Georgia. Training operations began May 18 and are currently ongoing.
Mentorship from U.S. forces is part of the Georgia Defense Readiness Program – Training, a U.S. and Georgia partnership project seeking to advance security cooperation between the two nations.
“Bilateral programs such as the GDRP demonstrate that proven partnerships are built on shared values, experiences and visions,” said U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the United States European Command, during the inauguration ceremony of the CTC. “This GDRP training program contributes to the security of the Black Sea region, and thus, the stability of the greater European security environments.”
U.S. Army units guide their Georgian Army counterparts on how to train themselves through independent home-station training up to company level live fire exercises. The overall goal is to develop systems and processes that enable the GAF to execute training in future exercises without U.S. Army mentorship.
“The Georgians have worked really hard to develop the CTC to train the defense readiness of Georgian infantry battalions,” said U.S. Army Maj. David Farrar, officer in charge of the Team Lynx advisory mission, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. “Once the GDRP-T mission is complete, the CTC will be poised to accept American light infantry battalions to execute training similar to what we do at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany or the Joint National Training Center in Cincu, Romania.”
The GDRP-T has three phases: home station training where units conduct squad and platoon evaluations, 13 weeks of CTC training focused on company-level evaluations at Vaziani and Norio Training Areas, and post CTC training to sustain the lessons learned.
“This is the first CTC we have in the Caucasus region,” said Georgian Army Col. Roman Janjulia, commander of the Combat Training Center. “We will now be comparable with NATO standards. We are thinking of offering this training to our partner countries in the region; even some NATO countries, and there is some interest already.”
The training also gave U.S. noncommissioned officers the opportunity to share their mentoring skills with NCOs of the 32nd Georgian Infantry Battalion.
“If I had to go to Afghanistan with them, I would go in a heartbeat,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jesse Kennedy, observer/controller with Team Lynx. “I’ve watched them continue to develop and they are only getting better. They are competent and extremely dedicated to the mission.”
The 32nd GIB is the second unit to go through the CTC since it started in May. The CTC is scheduled to train seven more battalions over the next few months with the assistance of a varied rotation of U.S. infantry units.
| Date Taken: | 11.16.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 11.20.2018 04:08 |
| Story ID: | 300329 |
| Location: | TBILISI, GE |
| Web Views: | 825 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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