Illinois National Guard Joint Chief of Staff Visit

15 April 2009

Illinois National Guard Joint Chief of Staff Visit

Col. Chris Lawson, the Joint Chief of Staff, Illinois National Guard visited Poland via the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program 06-11 April 2009.  Colonel Lawson met with the Training Directorate of the Polish Land Forces, U. S. Embassy Counter Terrorism Working Group members and local Polish Governmental Officials from the Deputy Governor’s Office of Malopolska Voviodship.  Lawson’s organizational command, the Illinois National Guard, is comprised of approximately 10,000 Army National Guard and approximately 3200 Air National Guard members.  Col. Lawson’s trip provided him possible future training requirements for the Illinois National Guard’s State Partnership Program as the Polish Armed Forces transform their forces to achieve NATO interoperability.  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.  This year, the Illinois National Guard will participate in a unit level exercise with Polish Land Forces, a professional development seminar and two familiarization events with the Polish Air Forces. 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.