MORE foreign troups on US soil?!?! Dutch Army King's Company wraps up training at Fort Hood

FORT HOOD, Texas (June 4, 2012) -- Fort Hood's 21st Cavalry Brigade (Air Combat) recently hosted the Netherlands' Royal Guard for five weeks of combat training.

Dutch infantry troops from the King's Company were the most recent to complete training at Fort Hood, in spite of thunderstorms that cancelled relevant exercises.

Despite weather-related setbacks, especially losing their mission rehearsal at Brownwood because of severe weather during the allotted training time, the Dutch were able to complete their culminating exercise and final validation requirement, a combined arms live-fire exercise with troops from the Royal Netherlands Air Force and Army at Fort Hood, May 20.

"We lost half our training value when we lost Brownwood," Dutch Maj. Ray Van Veen, S-3 for ground operations, Joint Netherlands Training Detachment, 21st Cav. Bde., said. "Still, the overall training level was not affected."

Van Veen is at Fort Hood as part of the permanent Dutch detachment under 21st Cav. Bde.'s Foreign Military Training program. He handles ground troops' training when Dutch Soldiers from the Royal Netherlands Army come to Fort Hood.

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Van Bruchem worked the air and Van Veen coordinated the ground troops. They all worked together May 20 for the large-scale combined exercise that paired AH-64 Apache helicopters, with ground forces delivered via assault helicopters and ground vehicles.

For many of the Dutch troops, the final exercise was the largest they have seen when not on deployment.

More at [link to www.army.mil]