Photo By Staff Sgt. Ariel Solomon | U.S., Australian and Romanian members of Regional Command-South’s Combined Joint...... read more read more
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Operation Enduring Freedom has offered a unique setting where NATO nations have built invaluable relationships and gained shared experience as they’ve sought to achieve common goals. Over the course of almost 13 years, one of the relationships that has flourished has been between U.S., Australian and Romanian intelligence personnel who have cycled through deployments to Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.
Lt. Col. Matt Gill, senior intelligence officer for Regional Command-South, Combined Joint Task Force-1 and 1st Cavalry Division, has a unique perspective concerning the Romanian contribution in the intelligence arena in Kandahar province since 2002. He was here when it began, and has also recently seen the Romanian contingent in his section leave for home.
Gill’s first deployment to Kandahar in 2002 was with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, as an intelligence officer. One day his boss approached him with a special request that caught him by surprise.
“I remember sitting in the wooden shack that we had built, and my boss walked in and said, ‘Hey Matt, we’ve got some Romanians coming in,’ and the first thing that went through my mind, which was in my DNA, was that the Romanians used to be part of the Warsaw Pact,” Gill said.
“I’m originally from Texas but I grew up in Europe. I went to high school in Brussels, Belgium, and I actually lived and went to elementary school in West Germany back when there was an East and West Germany,” Gill said. “There was NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and Romania was a part of that pact.”
Gill said he got over his initial shock and went down to the airfield with one of his noncommissioned officers to pick up the Romanians.
“The C-17 landed and none of us knew what to expect,” Gill said. “I think that both parties just stared at each other. Most of the Romanians barely spoke English, and I certainly didn’t speak Romanian. We just shook hands, got them settled in and not a word was exchanged. We just didn’t know what to do with each other yet.”
After a short time, Gill explained, he found out that one of the Romanian soldiers spoke English very well and actually had an affinity for the U.S., which offered a bridge of communication that Gill needed.
“Our first meeting we just got to know each other. We didn’t talk anything of intelligence whatsoever, we just talked to each other,” Gill said. “It really diffused all of those preconceived notions that I had grown up with. It was good to see that the shroud of the Cold War didn’t exist anymore.”
Gill said the Romanians immediately began showing interest in operations around the air base.
“They had a desire to see where they fit into the picture of Kandahar,” he said.
Kandahar in 2002 was a very different place than it is now and Gill said he believes there was an identity crisis amongst the Romanians in terms of who they were as intelligence professionals and how they were going to contribute.
“Almost 13 years later, their intelligence community is very much Romanian, it’s their own, they’ve chosen their own path forward, and it’s been very rewarding to see professionally,” he said.
Australian army Maj. Mick Hahn, combined joint intelligence deputy for RC-South, explained the dynamics of how countries like Romania, from the former Eastern bloc, developed their own style of analyzing intelligence. Many former Warsaw Pact countries are still very doctrine heavy and influenced by their senior commanders from the top down, Hahn said.
“So it’s taken them [Romanians] a lot of years to get into a sort of NATO way of thinking from bottom-up operations, where the information flows upward and drives operations.”
“It’s been interesting to see the Romanians, Hungarians, and Bulgarians all adapting to that way of thinking,” Hahn said. “I think it will take them quite a few more years to get where they want to go on the technical side of things, but I have no doubt that they’ll get there in the end.”
As years passed and the Romanian’s developed their intelligence identity, they also developed invaluable ties and friendships through working with the U.S. and the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
“I remember in late November of 2002, the Romanian intel shop invited us to their office to watch President George Bush welcome Romania into NATO at the Piata Revolutiei in Bucharest, Romania. We all sat in this small room watching the address on an old TV with bad reception. When President Bush commented that our Soldiers were serving side by side in Afghanistan, I believe that was the seminal moment for us and our Romanian brothers and sister in Kandahar.
“It was so interesting in the beginning how fast the U.S. and Romanians came to the realization that we were all here in the same dusty environment for the same mission,” Gill said. “Now over a decade’s passed and seeing that small five-man intelligence contingent develop into a massive contribution committed to ISAF, and the friendships that have lasted, is really amazing.”
| Date Taken: | 07.31.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.31.2014 03:50 |
| Story ID: | 137813 |
| Location: | KANDAHAR, AF |
| Hometown: | SYDNEY, NSW, AU |
| Hometown: | BUCHAREST, RO |
| Hometown: | FORT CAVAZOS, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 1,649 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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