SINAI PENINSULA, Egypt — Col. David E. M. Jones assumed command of the U.S.’s Task Force Sinai from Col. William “Clark” Lindner on the Multinational Force and Observer’s North Camp, Monday, July 7, 2015.
The mission for the MFO hasn’t changed in over 30 years: to observe, verify and report. However, the environment has rapidly changed over this last year. While this has come at some consternation, it has created opportunities to advance our force protection and focus on the role of our Peacekeepers here, said Lindner.
“It’s a great honor to be taking over such a prestigious organization and to command great American Soldiers who courageously stand for peace in an area that’s dynamically changing,” said Jones.
This was an exciting day for the commanders, who first met as cadets at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, in the summer of 1988.
We had mutual friends originally and got to know each other over our time at West Point through common things like classes and intermurals, said Lindner.
We really started smacking into each other at the National Training Center in the late-90s, early-2000s as post command captains, said Jones.
As their careers progressed, the two officers continued to stay in touch by attending promotions and visiting each other while in command deployments. What is very unusual is Jones has been Lindner’s replacement for two commands, first in Hoehenfels, Germany in 2012 and now in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt with Task Force Sinai and the MFO.
It’s even sweeter I’m doing this with a good colleague and classmate, makes it even better. We are the team of teams, we care about each other and the mission. Because of our friendship great communication was set up the moment I know I was going to head the task force. This made our transition seamless, said Jones.
Lindner is going onto be the deputy commander and chief of staff of the 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command in Grafenwoehr, Germany.
The MFO is a 12-nation mission which supervises the implementation of the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace and employs best efforts to prevent any violation of its terms.