press release 2008  

ILLINOIS NATIONAL GUARD ADJUTANT GENERAL VISIT

21 April 2008

Maj. Gen. [IL] William Enyart, the Adjutant General of Illinois visited Poland via the United States European Command Mil-to-Mil program 12-19 April 2008.  General Enyart received briefings from the Polish Land Forces, Air Force and Operations Command representatives that highlighted the current operations and future objectives of the Polish Armed Forces.  Maj. Gen. Enyart visited the Torun Artillery Academy, and the Krzesiny and Powidz airbases that contain the F-16 C/D Block 52 and C-130E squadrons respectively.  Enyart’s organization, the Illinois National Guard, is comprised of approximately 10,000 Army National Guard and approximately 3200 Air National Guard members.  Gen. Enyart’s trip provided him with 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 and three 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.