Photo By Staff Sgt. Derek Seifert | Swedish air force members graduated from the Aircraft and Systems Repairer course at...... read more read more
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One officer and seven NCOs were awarded graduation certificates as the final class to attend the course by their U.S. Air Force and Army instructors.
“It was a great experience,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Joshua Searcy, 128th Aviation Brigade instructor. “These are some of the most technical, intelligent and disciplined people I have ever had the chance to work with.”
The language barrier caused very little issue between the class and instructors as the Swedish students came prepared to learn from the U.S. military.
“I was pretty good at reading English, but now I can speak it relatively well since we spoke it all the time here,” said Swedish air force Staff Sgt. Jakob Fredriksson, 216th Maintenance Wing helicopter technician. “I got to see how other countries work. I not only got to talk to Americans, but Mexicans, Greeks and people from a lot of other countries.”
According to Searcy, the camaraderie between a country’s service members can be easily seen, but as other countries join together, that friendship takes time to build.
“There was just a mutual respect, not just between Soldiers or military members, but between aircraft maintainers,” said Searcy. “It was very easy to intermesh with them and build that camaraderie that made an easy teaching environment.”
After this experience, Fredriksson looks forward to getting back to his unit and applying the knowledge he gained during the course.
“I will put my new knowledge to work and participate in Sweden’s largest exercise in over 20 years and make sure the helicopters are operational,” said Fredriksson.
| Date Taken: | 11.30.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 12.02.2016 14:32 |
| Story ID: | 216268 |
| Location: | VA, US |
| Web Views: | 40 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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