OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso – Recently, U.S. Army Africa coordinated instruction for Burkina Faso Armed Forces personnel with the third phase of unit movement training.
Keeping in stride with USARAF’s guiding principle of helping African’s solve African problems, a two-man Africa Deployment Assistance Partnership Team - Ground or ADAPT-G as it is known, worked with 23 Burkinabe Armed Forces students as well as five student trainers chosen from a previous phase. A total of 56 Burkinabe students have participated in the ADAPT-G training.
ADAPT-G is a theater logistics engagement activity that helps build deployment capacity for African partner nations conducting peacekeeping, counterterrorism or humanitarian relief operations. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of State and aims to enhance African militaries ability to deploy in support various mission requirements.
The two-man team consisted of 1st Lt. Robert Hundemer and Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Wernholm from the 299th Brigade Support Battalion. The 299th BSB is part of USARAF’s Regionally Aligned Force -- the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, located at Fort Riley, Kan.
Hundemer and Wernholm were joined by Capt. Theresa Giorno of USARAF’s G-4 Logistics Directorate who coordinates ADAPT-G training.
According to Giorno, previous ADAPT-G training with the Burkinabe forces consisted of a site survey, coordination of engagement locations, key leader meetings, unit movement officer training and train the trainer selection.
“This is the third and final phase of ADAPT ground training we have conducted with the Burkinabe forces,” Giorno said. “We focus on ground deployment training and some elements of air movement such as palletizing.”
Giorno is a native of Whitewater, Wis., and a U.S. Army Reserve officer on active duty with USARAF.
“The objective here is to assist the Burkinabe forces in creating unit movement officers and trainers using the resources they have available. Prior to the ADAPT-G training, the Burkinabe were using contractors to assist in deployments,” Giorno said. “Eventually, the Burkinabe forces would like to be able to create a logistics school that will be a regional hub used by other African partner nations,” Giorno said.
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country located in northeastern central Africa. It’s surrounded by six countries; Mali, Niger, Benin,Togo, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire also known as the Ivory Coast.
She said the training was successful in spite of challenges of language and time in between phases of instruction.
Providing any course of instruction has its own particular challenges. The Burkina Faso ADAPT-G engagement was no exception.