03.06.2011.

Minister Sutanovac the visits Special Brigade and Training Centre in Pancevo

Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, have visited today the Special Army Brigade and NCO Training and Development Centre in Pancevo according to his regular schedule of activities.

- While visiting the Centre in Pancevo we had opportunity to attend a part of training, for both officers and NCOs, and especially the training of the second generation of professional soldiers who are being trained to become future non-commissioned officers. This is a new way of training, so that the non-commissioned personnel in the future will come from the ranks of professional soldiers, which is the motive for those who wish to join our forces because they will have opportunity for vertical advancement – Defence Minister pointed out.

While visiting the NCO Training and Development Centre, Minister visited the Marine Course, First Sergeant Course, English Language Course and Leadership Course, which are realized in the "National hero Stevica Jovanovic" barracks, where the Centre is located, as well as the training ground, and on that occasion he attended the performance of certain segments of training.

Minister Sutanovac visited also the Training for Trainers Course realised by the members of the members of the US Marine Corps. The two-week training involves non-commissioned officers from all training centres of the SAF Training Commands and the students were presented the purpose, operation, organization, tasks and history of the NCO Training and Development Centre, as well as basic information about the Pancevo Garrison.

Minister Sutanovac visited the Special Army Brigade in the "Rastko Nemanjic" barracks. On that occasion, he visited the sports centre, cinema, shooting range, as well as the training ground where a training exercise in a rural setting was conducted.

According to Minister Sutanovac, the tour of the Special Brigade was an opportunity to see how the members of the elite brigade of our military are trained. On that occasion, he expressed his satisfaction with its performance and progress over the past few years.

- Today it is one of the top elite brigades in Europe, especially in this part of the Old Continent – Minister Sutanovac said.

During the today's tours, as the Minister stated, the situation in the units and the problems that need to be addressed were discussed. He expressed his regret that due to budget cuts this year some problems cannot be met appropriately.

- As you can see, large sums of money were invested in the Special Brigade for the purpose of restoring its infrastructure and creating the most favourable conditions for work and training of its members – the Minister said adding that the problems are mostly inherited from the past, and are related to infrastructure and obsolete equipment and arms.

- The Brigade has recently received new arms and equipment, and the new parachutes will soon be introduced into our equipment and we expect the signing of the grant by the US Army in special armoured vehicles "Hammer" which will be exclusive for our military.

- We are speaking about 20 vehicles, and depending on the platform, their price is about 175 thousand dollars, and depending on the bureaucracy and type of our order the delivery can be even in one year, but it is important that the contract was signed – Minister Sutanovac said, adding that when it comes to equipment, we own parachutes that have not yet passed the customs procedure and it will be only late this year that we will be able to introduce them into our arms.