Page 126 - RSDG Year of 2022 CREST

134 EAGLE AND CARBINE
A little bleary eyed, I got off the plane in Seoul and was met by an impressively rigid solider holding a name card; we headed over to a car and I hopped in the back and reflected on the month ahead. I did not quite know what lay head for me at the Korean National Defence University and quietly wondered how much value my two pips could add. The next day I walked into the classroom and was greeted by a sea of field officers staring back at me. The course was a novel experience in two respects; it was my first time working a tri-service environment let alone a multinational one. While this was quite a lot in the first instance, I soon realised I was in a rather unique position; I was one of only two native English speakers and was also from a combat arm background. This was soon realised by the rest of the class during the planning cycles, and I quickly became the go to guy for “checking” their work before it was submitted.
The course was broken down into two parts: the first, was a series of lectures on all manner things from the differing legal bases for UN missions, an overview of all UN missions worldwide, voice of experience lectures and plenty of case studies. The second two
weeks were taken up by planning cycles, with the first week being more DS lead and the second week being the assessment week. The Defence University was brilliantly resourced throughout with an excellent HIGHCON and LOWCON and string of experts from ICRC, UN police and NGOs coming to provide guidance.
The time spent on the course was hugely to my benefit. Although I was not due to be sent out as an SO1/SO2 in some UN Mission Headquarters like the rest of course, I was instead flying to Mali in November to be the Task Groups Liaison Officer. The four weeks I spent with people from a range of nationalities and varying levels of English, provided some of the most appropriate pre deployment training I could have hoped for. It was also a fascinating experience learning about all the other UN missions around the world.
During the course there were two cultural days set aside for all the international students. We were not told much, just to pack an overnight bag and some suitable walking shoes. We headed off in minibus and after several hours we reached a succession of military
UN Staff Officer Course in Korea
Lt OMH Horridge
Surrounded by far too many field officers for any subbies liking.