WEBVTT

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- Okay, I'm major
general Cezary Wiśniewski

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Polish defense attache
here in Washington, D.C.

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I'm an Air Force guy.

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So, from 1993 we cooperate with

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the great state of Illinois,

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and of course initially
it was just cooperation

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between the people meeting,

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and after that when we started
buying the U.S. equipment,

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actually, this cooperation boosted,

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and, for example, in the Air Force

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when we bought the F-16

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we have a great contact with

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Illinois National Guard.

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The wing, F-16 wing, and
people from the wing help us to

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make a preparation before
actually we introduce

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the F16 in our fleet,

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so it was really important
for us to get the

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knowledge and experience from
Illinois Guard F-16 unit,

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to prepare our people, our infrastructure

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and equipment to make,

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they reached the initial
operation capability really fast.

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It was just a matter of they
speed up the process in Poland

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based on the knowledge and experience

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provided by the Guard unit.

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Basically, first of all,

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the great relation is between the

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Illinois National Guard
and the Polish armies,

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so the land forces.

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They cooperate in Iraq and
Afghanistan working together

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and that's probably built
a strong relationship

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between the army units.

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In the Air Force,

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basically we work with
the Guard F-16 unit,

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and we fly together,

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we just exchange the information,

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and that was a great time
because we just introduced

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the new weapons system in Poland,

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and we just looking for knowledge.

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And of course active duty
units helped us a lot.

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162nd fighter wing in Tucson,

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when we get the training, helped us a lot,

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but still the Guard was
some kind of the source

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of the information for
us which helps us a lot.

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Well, I think, yes, there is
of course a few layers of that.

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First of all is a personal relationship

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which is built during the exercises or

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being deployed across the world.

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And of course people
can talk to each other,

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can send the email, can make a phone call,

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and just ask about advice about the help,

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or just, you know, just
learn each other better.

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And there's another layer with the units.

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Sometimes when we introduce
the new weapons system,

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the knowledge which comes
with the weapons system,

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it's something which help us to

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speed up the process in Poland.

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We can learn a lot from the Guard units.

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Right now there's another
layer of the cooperation

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between Poland, the new service,

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Republic Territorial Forces.

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They're not the same like the Guard unit,

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it's a little bit different system.

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These people just wanted to learn a lot

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how the National Guard do the business,

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how train people, how to select,

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how to maintain, you know,
the specialist in a service,

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which is not easy, you know, just

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the world is driven by the money right now

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so the Guards has to compete
with the other services with,

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you know, the other entity
to just bring the people,

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to train them and to
prepare for the operation.

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And of course the laws, the
most important recently,

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is that we have an enhanced fort presence,

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you know the concept of
the NATO to strength,

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the eastern flank of NATO,

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and up to this point there was a units

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from the active duty
army deployed to Poland,

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ABCT or AFP, and this year the first time,

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the Tennessee National
Guard is going to deploy

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as a battalion, a heavy
battalion to Poland.

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They're going to station
in one of our range

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and they're going to
operate with our brigade

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to looking for interoperability

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between the people and between the system

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so it's really a move forward for us,

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to see how the Guard unit operate

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in such convoluted
operational environment.

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Well, you know, the Illinois state,

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it's something, it's some state

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which is in our hearts,
as a pulse you know,

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Chicago's probably the
second biggest town,

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the Polish town in the
world after the Warsaw,

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so of course, many Polish families

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has members in United States

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and most of them live in the
Chicago or Illinois state.

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And of course my personal experiences

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with the airmen from the
National Guard F-16 unit,

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10 years ago we started cooperation,

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and, you know it stays forever

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so it was a really great experience.