Attention from high above

Under a fictitious scenario on the course organized by the HDF Military Training Centre, reports were coming in about preparations for a protest in Besenyszög, a flood on the river at Tiszapüspöki and the movement of an unknown military convoy in the vicinity of Jászladány. The students preparing for UN missions were tasked with reconnoitering the sites, documenting the events, taking photos and notes, professionally evaluating the information and compiling a report after their return to base. The exercise is a realistic simulation of what the forces serving under the aegis of the United Nations encounter on a daily basis from the Middle East to Africa to Southeast Asia.

The International Military Observers’ Course is based on a curriculum approved by the UN. It is aimed at preparing students for military observer service. It is special because of its truly international character: a total of 1044 course participants have completed its iterations so far, among them 635 foreign students from 95 different countries. Besides Hungarian servicemembers, the training audience of the present course includes personnel from Albania, Azerbaijan, France, Georgia, Bangladesh, China, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Poland, Sri Lanka, Türkiye and Thailand, most of them learning to be able to participate in peacekeeping missions.

The classroom training is about the structure of UN missions, the fundamentals of peacekeeping, working with interpreters, negotiation techniques, as well as the importance of cultural awareness. The hands-on training sessions involve radiotelephony, manning observation posts and a large-volume foot patrol drill, so the participants are to be tested across a wide spectrum of skills from casualty care to information gathering to passing through checkpoints.

Aerial reconnaissance by helicopter is one of the key elements of the last week, to be followed by a two-day closing exercise, where the students can prove their readiness for tackling the challenges of peacekeeping missions by performing tasks in complex, lifelike situations.