FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (July 18, 2009) — Two major conferences are coming later this month to Fort Leonard Wood, one of them featuring John Ashcroft, Missouri’s former governor and the nation’s former attorney general, speaking on combating weapons of mass destruction in a post-9/11 environment. Ashcroft’s speech will be part of the Joint Senior Leaders’ Course, held from July 23 to 25, which focuses on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training being offered by Fort Leonard Wood’s CBRN School. Another conference will be held at Fort Leonard Wood the following week that specifically focuses on foreign military issues of American allies. From July 27 to 30, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force will discuss topics including combating improvised explosive devices. As the home of the Army Engineer School, Fort Leonard Wood’s role includes training soldiers to stop IEDs, which have become the major weapon of choice by lightly-armed insurgents who couldn’t effectively take on a heavily armed American military unit but instead use roadside bombs, mines, and even Cold War-era hand-thrown munitions to attack patrolling troops and supply convoys. “These nations are fighting in Afghanistan, having their citizen soldiers killed, because we asked them to join us. So we have a moral obligation to assist them in dealing with IEDs, the #1 killer on that battlefield,” according to a Fort Leonard Wood media announcement.
Click here to read more on Pulaski County Daily News ... Follow me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/darrellmaurina/
