Three Cheers for Poland

[sfc_darrel]

Pole Position
Three cheers for Poland, whose troops, The Weekly Standard reports, played a bigger role in Iraq's liberation than most people had realized:

One of the primary objectives during the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom was the port at Umm Qasr. Without it, delivering adequate humanitarian aid to the rest of Iraq would have been nearly impossible for the coalition. Not long after the start of the war, the port was secured--in large part thanks to GROM, Poland's elite commandos.

Who even knew Poland had special forces? For a while, not many. The Polish government waited three years before publicly disclosing GROM's existence. Standing for Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno Mobilnego (Operational Mobile Response Group), the name actually stems from a special-forces commander, Gromoslaw Czempinski, who, during the first Gulf War, led a Polish unit into Western Iraq to rescue a group of CIA operatives. One of the other men on that secret mission was Slawomir Petelicki--the father of GROM.

[catman]

Thanks for the update, do you have any links for the Polish Spec Ops?

Trav

[Andy]

http://www.poloniatoday.com
Go to military, or there might actually be a direct link to GROM, which the Polish have nick-named "Thunder". It's like a DELTA FORCE or British SAS.
It is also of interest to note Poland has about 100 Mig fighters. They have recently purchased about 45 U.S. F-15's. Poland is also interested in buying some of our M1A1 tanks, which I doubt the Germans or Russians would be happy about. Currently, they have around a thousand Russian T-72's.
A new power in Eastern Europe is on the rise?

Stay healthy,
Andrzejczyk, Thomas E.

[catman]

Thanks Andy

Trav

[revwardoc]

I heard about Poland sending troops to the Gulf, then, when they got there, the President of Mexico called the PM of Poland and asked what they were supposed to do with them!