Marines now filling in as NATO trainers - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Marines now filling in as NATO trainers

Marines are temporarily filling NATO training billets in Afghanistan, while the struggle to convince other countries to send trainers continues.

The 142 augmentees, active-duty Marines from units all over the Corps, were sent on short notice to Afghanistan, on top of the 8,500 Marines already slated for deployment under President Obama’s surge of 30,000 troops.

The temporary assignment is a 90-day rotation under NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan headquarters at Camp Eggers in Kabul, where 33 enlisted Marines and officers are on six-month to one-year rotations, working as mentors and advisers to the Afghan ministries of defense and interior.

The additional trainers began trickling into Afghanistan in late March to work hands-on jobs at 10 of NATO’s 28 police schoolhouses.

Stood up in November, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan is a three-star command with a role to help the Afghans identify and recruit appropriate applicants into the police and armed forces, and develop durable recruiting and training systems.

Once the Afghan recruits complete basic and initial unit training, they are fielded to units that fall under another three-star command stood up in October, the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, which partners the new Afghan police and soldiers with U.S. and coalition trainers and mentors who live, eat and bunk with them.

The two-tier system replaces embedded training teams and police mentor teams — small groups that, while assigned to work with Afghan recruits during the day, didn’t remain at camps with them.

The 90-day rotations for the Marines will continue for the foreseeable future, said Marine Col. Gregory Breazile, spokesman with NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan.

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