Sgt-Maj. Ludek Kolesa, NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Command Sergeant Major (CSM) visited Budapest for the third time as a member of the delegation headed by Gen. Stéphane Abrial, NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation (SACT). Sgt-Maj. Kolesa first had bilateral talks with his host, HDF CSM WO Tibor Bogdán, then he briefed the members of the board present to honor the CSM corps on the current tasks and concepts of NATO ACT as well as the possible responses to today’s challenges. In the break of the meeting Sgt-Maj. Kolesa answered the questions of Defence Mirror.

My main task consists in supporting the transformation of the NCO corps within the nations and developing the NATO NCO professional development program. Transformation mostly means education and training for the NCOs and the troops. The biggest challenge is just the fact that I work in an international environment where different nations – based on their history and traditions – have developed very different positions on the role of the NCO corps. They might have very different relationship between the NCO corps and the officer corps and very different views on both what NCOs should do and how NCOs should support and work with officers.

NATO today is very different from NATO just ten or just five years ago. If I look on the international NCO scene, just five or six years ago there was almost nothing going on multinationally or being initiated by NATO. But actually, around 2005 there was a bigger impulse for developing the cooperation on the NCO level. Transformation as such is a never-ending story, because we cannot say this is the goal where we want to be, and that’s where we stop transforming ourselves. Of course we have some goal, some point where we want to get, but we have to understand that when we get there, there will be some further issues and challenges, so we will be still continuing transformation in different ways and areas, so that transformation will never stop.

I cannot see there would be many differences between Hungarian and Czech NCOs because of the lot of common history and the geographical location of our two countries. Not long ago we were actually neighbor countries, now we have some countries in between us, but on reflection I can see much bigger differences between our NCOs and let’s say Canadian and German NCOs, but not really that big difference between Hungarian and Czech NCOs.

I have been here for just a few hours, but already during that time I could compare how much progress the Hungarian forces and Hungarian NCOs have made. I visited Hungary last time three years ago from my previous position as the sergeant major of the Czech armed forces, so today, while visiting for example the NCO Vocational School in Szentendre, I could already identify the differences between the situation which I experienced three years ago and the situation now, so I can see that there has been permanent progress, and the Hungarian Defence Forces with the NCO corps within them are moving ahead step by step in a very positive way.

My military career is very untypical for the military. First I did compulsory training as a reserve officer during my university studies. Then I did my compulsory service and I didn’t want to stay in the military so I left. However, I rejoined in the 90s, so I saw the changes and potential of being deployed and exposed to an international environment. When I rejoined in 1994, the situation was of course far from the options we have for our NCOs today. Originally I signed for two years, then extended it for another two years, and finally I was offered a ten-year contract. That’s why I have become much more involved. When I rejoined in 1994, I couldn’t imagine ever being a sergeant major of the Czech armed forces or a CSM in NATO, because nothing like that existed at that time for us. It was beyond our wildest dreams that one day we will be sent to the United States to study in the US Army Sergeant Major Academy, occupy such positions, have such influence and be involved in high-level decisions.  So I’m really grateful that I was born when I was born, and could live a history starting with the late 80’s and the 1989 change of the regime. Although part of it was about the division of my own country, I think now we Czechs have better relations with the Slovaks than ever before.

László Vastagh and Boldizsár Eszes