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Mongolians arrive to train Afghan Airman

  • Published
  • By MC3 Jared Walker
  • 438th AEW PA
KABUL, Afghanistan --  Recently, Mongolian Airman arrived at Kabul International Airport to help NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan to help train Afghan Airman. The Mongolians can connect to the Afghans on certain levels such as language and culture that U.S. troops and other coalition troops cannot.

"The Mongolian Team has a strength going for them. They have two people on their team that speak Russian. Some of the older Afghans here were trained by the Russians and speak Russian as well. Also, some of the technical orders are also in Russian which the older Afghans can read and translate to their younger counter parts," said Capt. Tom Philbert, Rotary Wing Presidential Maintenance Advisor and is the person that deals with all the foreign countries that come in as teams.

The U.S. Air Force does not typically fly the Mi-17 transport helicopters and they don't have much expertise on them, so the Mongolians came in to share their knowledge.
"The Mongolians have the Mi-17 technical expertise and they are here to create a training program to teach new groups of young Afghan maintainers and train them on certain tasks," said Philbert.

Training the Afghans is a combined effort. With NATO and coalition troops conducting training the Afghans will receive many view points and experiences.

"What we aim for is true interaction between us, coalition forces and the Afghans. We will work closely with the Afghans, so they will receive the knowledge and experience they will need. We want our advisors to push the low level workers and crew chiefs to learn, so they can take care of the helicopters," said Lt. Col. Chogdon Boldbaatar, officer in charge of Afghan Advising team from Mongolia. "In a year or so, you will see the effect the training will have on the Afghan Air Force".

Boldbaatar said his team is the first of all the Mongolian Air Force to be sent as advisors to interact with coalition forces. He stressed that his whole team, including himself, have been given a lot of responsibilities. For the Mongolian advisors, their focus is putting the mission first above all else.

"It's important that we come together and do what's right for Afghanistan and their Air Force," said Capt. Philbert. "One of the things that I always say is there is no one right way to do things here. We are not trying to build the U.S. Air Force here. We are building the Afghan Air Force. There are certain things that we do that they will emulate and they will emulate the Croatians, Mongolians and the other advisors as well. They can use their training to form their different programs and maintain their fleet."