As soon as the Romanian flag was raised on 18th July 2008, Romania officially became the tenth member state of the Multinational Corps Northeast. The Corps is truly multinational, apart from the Framework Nations, i.e. Denmark, Germany and Poland; there are Participating States, i.e. Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the United States and now – Romania.
Lieutenant General Zdzisław Goral, Commander Multinational Corps Northeast, representatives of all Corps’ nations and G-Divisions lined up to welcome the first Romanian officer Major Adrian Sileanu who starts his service at the Headquarters. In his speech the Commander MNC NE welcomed the Romanian officer and underlined the fact that Romania’s participation indicates not only the growth of the Corps but also its importance in the NATO family in general.
A trumpeter announced the raising of the Romanian flag with a melody typical to such moments in the Polish army. Then, the soldiers ran up the flag, which proudly started to flutter next to the one of NATO, Szczecin and all other nations’ flags. Romania has become the tenth nation of the Multinational Corps Northeast.
Major Adrian Sileanu starts his service in the Logistic Planning Branch of G-4 Division responsible for Logistics. He was trained in logistics; therefore his new responsibilities correspond to his experience as. As he admitted, during his stay in the Corps, he would like not only to learn from his new colleagues from the Corps but also share his personal experience gathered for example during the mission in Iraq or several multinational exercises he took part in. For the next three years Szczecin will be home to him and his family, which is actually going to become bigger soon.
Major Adrian Sileanu will not be the only Romanian soldier serving at the Headquarters. He will be accompanied by another officer, who is going to work in the G-5 Division.
Growing Corps’ family
When the Multinational Corps Northeast was established in 1999, there were three Framework Nations – Denmark, Germany and Poland that contributed to it. Since then, the Corps has been successively growing. Since April 2004, the flags of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been fluttering in the Headquarters. In January 2005 Slovakia joined Multinational Corps Northeast. Its neighbour, the Czech Republic sent their officers just a few months later, in October 2005. Then, the US flag was hoisted in November 2006 and the United States officially became the ninth nation of the Corps. Finally, Romanian joined the MNC NE family in July and the Romanian flag was proudly raised. MNC NE family has ten member states already.
