embassy events 2008 

Illinois Delgation in Warsaw for Civil-Military Collaboration Visit

19 November 2008

Illinois Delegation Meets with US Ambassador Victor Ashe

Colonel Damon Arnold, Director of Public of Health, State of Illinois, visited Poland 18-21 November with a delegation from the state, announced Press Attaché James Wolfe. Colonel Arnold and the delegation met with representatives of the Polish Ministry of Defense Crisis Incident Response Team, Ministry of Interior and US Embassy. Discussions focused on the State Partnership Program initiative of collaboration between Military-Civilian entities. Arnold traveled to locations in Warsaw that focus on Crisis and Consequence Management situations.  

Arnold is also part of the Illinois National Guard organization, which is comprised of approximately 13,000 Army and Air National Guard members. Since 1993, the Illinois National Guard and Polish Armed Forces have participated in a partnership program that provides for the sharing of ideas between two nations. 

Regionally, Poland receives the most U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) assistance funding and is also the sixth largest FMF recipient in the world. To date this includes over $285 million in direct FMF grants and more than $3.9 billion in FMF loans. Additionally, Poland has received more than $31 million dollars under the Combined Education Training Program (CETP) which includes: the International Military Education Training (IMET) Program; Military to Military (M2M) Program; State Partnership Program (SPP) and Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP). Poland utilizes U.S. support to help transform and modernize the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland.