1. Dear All,
As most of you are aware, I have been on the Black Sea for Ideation 09 with the Royal Dutch
Marine Commandos as they conducted a three week exercise involving their LCVP's in Constanta,
Romania aboard the Johan de Witt warship. As I had no contact whatsoever with the outside
world, it is interesting getting back to life on land, seeing light in the morning and sleeping without
the PA system Taps 5 am wake-up.....which I kind of miss already! The team clicked immediately,
which certainly made the exercise enjoyable. As I had volumes of email and Inmail I will post this
to explain where I have been. A few of the very interesting experiences I and my small team had:
We left with about 200 MC commandos on a C-10 out of Eindhoven Air force Base which was an
adventure on its own. Although I delivered a quot;Worst Casequot; nuclear scenario on-board for the
quot;Support to Consequent Management Operations Exercisequot; attended by Romanian MoD and then
a biological weapons analysis on Afghanistan and Africa to select staff, the highlight was going out
to observe the Dutch exercise on the River Danube and riding in their very cool and fast LCPV's
during a live fire exercise! The RMC was incredible and twice we did an amphibious landing at two
of the camps they had established on the river. Col. H, our host, went to exceptional lengths to
provide us with information on the exercise and show us around the command and control post.
We were briefed by several commandos on their exercise and met their Romanian counter-parts.
The photos from the exercise are incredible. The Dutch commando and Special Forces units were
very impressive and extremely well equipped.
Romania was also quite an interesting place. It's difficult to imagine such abject poverty exists in
Europe like what one sees in Romania. Outside Constanta it is a world apart and one get's the
sense of what subsistence farming means and feudal like society with peasants and wild dogs, no
plumbing and little electricity. With no civil infrastructure there was trash everywhere and only dirt
and horse drawn carriages. It was a strange mixing of modern society, a very good asphalt road,
running through what can only be described as less than a third world country. Some of the areas
looked like photos or footage one sees from failed states in Africa. It was a confronting experience.
Life on the Johan de Witt was quite interesting as well. The Romanian President made an official
state visit to the ship as the highlight. I was well looked after by the RNLMC for the duration and
had a wonderful time both attending briefings and delivering them. I think the team agreed at
our final briefing that future support and engagement is on the horizon. I am very honoured to
have been invited and to have participated in this exercise.
J