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NEWS | Nov. 14, 2017

Military Police and Kuwaiti counterparts conduct partnership academy

By 1st Lt. Vanessa Rios U.S. Army Central

Soldiers from 340th Military Police Battalion Theater Field Confinement Facility and their Kuwaiti counterparts conducted a five-week training program called Military Police Partnership Academy, Sept. 25 – Oct. 30, to exchange best practices for detainee handling and correctional facility operations.

Soldiers of all ranks and experiences facilitated the program which focused on a variety of skills from convoy operations and combat first aid to detention operations and riot control training.

Maj. Larry Brink, 340th MP Battalion Commander, was able to delegate the different parts of training amongst his specialized Soldiers.

“Many of my MPs are multi-trained in other military police disciplines,” said Brink.

“The purpose of this academy is more of a partnership exchange academy,” Brink said. “The intent is to establish a partnership of shared knowledge and exchange. The topics decided were crowd control, riot control, detention and confinement operations, convoy security operations, urban operations, and first aid.”

Kuwait sent 34 participants from Kuwaiti military police and 14 members of the Amiri Guard, 8 of whom were Special Reaction Tactics personnel.

Staff Sgt. Gregory Emmett Bell Jr., Operations NCO and Special Reaction Tactics certified from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania said, “The Kuwaiti Military Police and Amiri Guard were very enthusiastic about the urban operations training. The two Kuwaiti military forces worked extremely well together … and with the assistance of the Amiri Guard Force.”

Other U.S. participants found the training and teaching opportunities to be a great chance to broaden and reinforce their own skills.

Spc. Ashley Carter, a nursing school student at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, put her civilian experience to work as an assistant instructor during the combat first aid training. She worked together with Sgt. Kevin Feijo, the lead instructor and a medic for the 340th MP BN Det.

“This partnership training has been a great experience,” said Carter. “Being given the opportunity to use my personal experiences and education to assist in teaching these Soldiers skills that they can use in real-life situations was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Training with the Kuwaitis allowed U.S. Soldiers to learn new ways of doing old tasks and experience more Kuwaiti culture.

“This training provided everyone including myself with new techniques and tactics to better ourselves, our facilities, and our confinement and detention operations,” said Sgt. Robert Pickens, TFCF Watch Commander. “Everyone involved received valuable lessons on our different cultures, military procedures, and our basic lifestyles.”

“It is always a pleasure to be able to use my past experiences to help train new soldiers, whether it’s the Kuwait military or our young Soldiers,” said Pickens.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Matthew Franconi, Correctional Services Branch Chief, said, “This partnership training has provided our Soldiers with an invaluable learning opportunity and experience that they will be able to carry with them for the rest of their professional and personal lives.”

“Being a lead instructor and working with the Kuwaiti Military Police has been a very rewarding experience. We truly learned as much from them as they learned from us,” says Franconi.