Greetings to all FAOs and readers of this article's insightful and excellent treatment about IMET.
** Without indulging in (ahem) "war stories," may I corroborate the importance and benefit of the residual relationships of IMET graduates after their return to their home countries. I was an advisor, instructor, tutor and facilitator to IMET students from the CENTCOM AOR who attended various officer courses at USAJFKSWCS at Fort Bragg, NC during the 1970s-late 1980s.
** As a USAR FAO (FA 48G, Arabic) assigned as IMA to the Defense Attaché System (DAS), I later had occasions to go to those students' countries during on-call support of CENTCOM, i.e. JCETs in the BRIGHT STAR series, Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM, and Operation PROVIDE COMFORT. ** I was able to find and contact several of my former advisees and re-energize our rapport. Through their good offices and (for them) rare official support, I was able to visit military HQs, schools, and tactical units which otherwise would have been difficult (in a few cases, otherwise impossible) to contact, much less access.
Several of the points and considerations this article raises might well -- IMPO --also apply to activities and preparation of members of the U.S. Army's recently-established Security Force Assistance (SFA) Command SFA Brigades. Curious that no FAOs seem to be assigned or attached to the SFABs to provide his / her LREC expertise, skill-set, and "ground truth smarts" to support those elements during their pre-deployment preparation, deployment and operations on SFA-specific missions in the respective FAO's area of concentration.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: I provide such FAO-related on-site support as SME / trainer to a US Marine Corps organization -- which is much functionally akin to our Army's Military Advisor Training Academy at Fort Benning -- during that organization's conduct of country-focused programs for training, certification, and deployment of USMC-resourced Security Assistance Teams, aka SATs in "US Marine-speak").
Greetings to all FAOs and readers of this article's insightful and excellent treatment about IMET.
** Without indulging in (ahem) "war stories," may I corroborate the importance and benefit of the residual relationships of IMET graduates after their return to their home countries. I was an advisor, instructor, tutor and facilitator to IMET students from the CENTCOM AOR who attended various officer courses at USAJFKSWCS at Fort Bragg, NC during the 1970s-late 1980s.
** As a USAR FAO (FA 48G, Arabic) assigned as IMA to the Defense Attaché System (DAS), I later had occasions to go to those students' countries during on-call support of CENTCOM, i.e. JCETs in the BRIGHT STAR series, Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM, and Operation PROVIDE COMFORT. ** I was able to find and contact several of my former advisees and re-energize our rapport. Through their good offices and (for them) rare official support, I was able to visit military HQs, schools, and tactical units which otherwise would have been difficult (in a few cases, otherwise impossible) to contact, much less access.
Several of the points and considerations this article raises might well -- IMPO --also apply to activities and preparation of members of the U.S. Army's recently-established Security Force Assistance (SFA) Command SFA Brigades. Curious that no FAOs seem to be assigned or attached to the SFABs to provide his / her LREC expertise, skill-set, and "ground truth smarts" to support those elements during their pre-deployment preparation, deployment and operations on SFA-specific missions in the respective FAO's area of concentration.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: I provide such FAO-related on-site support as SME / trainer to a US Marine Corps organization -- which is much functionally akin to our Army's Military Advisor Training Academy at Fort Benning -- during that organization's conduct of country-focused programs for training, certification, and deployment of USMC-resourced Security Assistance Teams, aka SATs in "US Marine-speak").
Kudos again to the authors for this fine article.
Sincerely,
Stephen H. Franke
LTC, FAO / MI / SOF / Attaché /
Security Cooperation / SFA
U.S. Army Retired
San Pedro, California
"FAOs Forward!"
Is it possible to get the references?