{"id":9102,"date":"2023-05-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=9102"},"modified":"2023-05-07T06:49:02","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T06:49:02","slug":"new-york-new-jersey-officer-candidates-hone-skills-with-albanian-counterparts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=9102","title":{"rendered":"New York, New Jersey officer candidates hone skills with Albanian counterparts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n New York and New Jersey Army National Guard officer candidates and Albanian officer cadets listen during a mission briefing on April 12 , near Rrogozhine-Kryevidh, Albania. Eight New York and New Jersey Army Guard officer candidates participated in two weeks of training with Albanian officer cadets April 10-24 as part of a State Partnership Program exchange. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt 1st Class Everitt Speros)
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\n New York and New Jersey Army National Guard officer candidates and Albanian officer cadets share a lesson the maintaining the AK-47 Soviet-era rifle on April 12, 2023, near Rrogozhine-Kryevidh, Albania. Eight New York and New Jersey Army Guard officer candidates participated in two weeks of training with Albanian officer cadets April 10-24 as part of a State Partnership Program exchange. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt 1st Class Everitt Speros)
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\n New York and New Jersey Army National Guard officer candidates and Albanian officer cadets listen during a mission briefing on April 14, 2023, near Rrogozhine-Kryevidh, Albania. Eight New York and New Jersey Army Guard officer candidates participated in two weeks of training with Albanian officer cadets April 10-24 as part of a State Partnership Program exchange. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Capt. Edwin Ponce)
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\n New York Army National Guard Officer Candidate Katherine Murrell briefs a squad plan to New York and New Jersey Army National Guard and Albanian trainee officers during a joint training exercise on April 17, 2023 near Rrogozhine-Kryevidh, Albania. Eight New York and New Jersey Army Guard officer candidates participated in two weeks of training with Albanian officer cadets April 10-24 as part of a State Partnership Program exchange. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Capt. Edwin Ponce)
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\n New York and New Jersey Army National Guard officer candidates and Albanian officer cadets lpose for a group photograph following two weeks of training together on April 22, 2023, near Rrogozhine-Kryevidh, Albania. Eight New York and New Jersey Army Guard officer candidates participated in two weeks of training with Albanian officer cadets April 10-24 as part of a State Partnership Program exchange. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. 1st Class Everrit Speros )
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DURRES, Albania–Five New York Army National Guard officer candidates spent April 10 to 24 in Albania, honing their leadership skills with their counterparts from the Albanian Armed Forces Academy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraining with the Albanian officer candidates was a really great experience,\u201d said Officer Candidate Katherine Murrell. \u201cThere were challenges with communication. But they weren\u2019t as big as I thought they would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The training, said Officer Candidate Jason Frantz, \u201csurpassed all my expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five officer candidates enrolled in the 106th Regional Training Institute Officer Candidate School, or OCS for short, and New York six cadre members, were invited to Albania for the training by the New Jersey Army Guard OCS program.<\/p>\n

Seventeen New Jersey officer candidates, and six New Jersey OCS cadre participated in the training, which took place near the city of Durres on the Adriatic coast.<\/p>\n

The New Jersey National Guard has a State Partnership Program relationship with Albania and New Jersey\u2019s 1st Battalion, 254th Training Regiment, has been working with the Albanians to improve that nation\u2019s officer training program, according to Lt. Col. Stuart Loy, the training regiment\u2019s commander.<\/p>\n

New Jersey sent their officer candidates to train in Albania in 2022, Loy said. This year he wanted to expand the effort as the next step in the process, so he invited New York to participate, Loy said.<\/p>\n

His goal is to expand the number of countries participating in this annual training event, Loy said. He wants to invite the New York Army National Guard again in 2024, along with another state OCS, and hopefully another NATO country, Loy explained.<\/p>\n

Sgt. 1st Class Everitt Speros, the New York OCS course manager, said he was pleasantly surprised by how good the training was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be a little too much dog and pony,\u201d Speros said. \u201cI was worried that the training was going to be dumbed down and not as intensive and I was worried the candidates would not get a lot out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, said the veteran of the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry\u2019s fight for Route Irish in Baghdad during the Iraq War, the training was excellent.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo candidates have had more squad tactical lane reps,\u201d Speros said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach candidate did close to 30 squad lanes in April. This is enormous and gives them a tremendous leg up,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

They got plenty of chances to go through troop leading procedures, deliver an operations order, and lead a squad, Speros said.<\/p>\n

Murrell and Frantz both said that the repeated opportunities to run the tactical problems really helped them learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of fun when we started to figure out how to coordinate everything,\u201d Frantz said.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to work with troops from another NATO country was also invaluable, said Capt. Edwin Ponce, one of the OCS training officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave them a little bit of a taste of what they will be doing in the real world once they get commissioned as lieutenants,\u201d Ponce said.<\/p>\n

The New York and New Jersey National Guard officer candidates and 37 Albanian academy cadets in their second year of training, were integrated into squads together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little challenging for them, in the sense of the language barrier, especially when it came time to plan and execute training,\u201d Ponce said.<\/p>\n

The language barrier was a challenge, Murrell said, but both the Americans and Albanians managed to work things out.<\/p>\n

Some Albanians spoke excellent English and could translate, she said, and others spoke enough to get by. And when it came time for the tactical exercises, they used signs to communicate as well, she said.<\/p>\n

The training focused on five exercises, Speros said. The officer candidates and cadets had to conduct a movement to contact, conduct a squad attack, knock out a bunker, set up an ambush, and react to an ambush.<\/p>\n

The trainees were given a platoon order and then put together their squad operations orders, he said.<\/p>\n

On a Friday night to Sunday training weekend, each officer candidate would get to be a squad leader twice, Speros. On this training mission they were getting a chance to lead twice a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got a tremendous amount of reps and a tremendous amount of one-on-one attention,\u201d Speros said.<\/p>\n

The Albanian Armed Forces Academy commander and Albania\u2019s Chief of Defence both visited the training to observe. This, Loy said, would be like having the head of the Army\u2019s Training and Doctrine Command and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visiting.<\/p>\n

The Albanians, Speros said, \u201cwere thirsty to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Albanian military was originally based on Russian models of command. Now they are trying to incorporate western military leadership styles, Loy explained.<\/p>\n

Training with American National Guard troops helps them do that, he said.<\/p>\n

The trip was not all work.<\/p>\n

The Americans visited the city of Durress, Albanian\u2019s second largest city, and took part in a staff ride discussing the military history of the region. The coastal city has been a gateway for invaders, including the 1939 invasion by Italy during World War II.<\/p>\n

Including the New York Army National Guard team in this year\u2019s Albanian training rotation helped make the training more successful, Loy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dynamic cross talk and training between programs, adding the New York Army Guard perspective and experience to the New Jersey program proved a key part of the mission success,\u201d Loy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all honesty, I believe that was the key to the training being so successful,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 New York and New Jersey Army National Guard officer candidates and Albanian officer cadets listen during a mission briefing on April 12 , near Rrogozhine-Kryevidh, Albania. Eight New York and New Jersey Army Guard officer candidates participated in two weeks of training with Albanian officer cadets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9104,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9110,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9102\/revisions\/9110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}