High American award for CCOE staff member
CCOE’s branch Chief Training and Education, Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Keijzer, Royal Netherland Marine Corps, received the US Meritorious Service Medal. This award was handed out by the US Ambassador Timothy Boas at the US Embassy in The Hague on December 17th 2015. LTC Keijzer received this, high American award, for his unparalleled focus and leadership in his position as Subject Matter Expert of Security Force Assistance (SFA) and Insider Threat Mitigation during his tour at Commander ISAF Advice and Assistance Team (CAAT) in Afghanistan in 2012-2013. The CAAT acted as the directed telescope for Commander ISAF in order to achieve strategic effects.
LTC Keijzer conducted multiple patrols with advisory teams throughout Afghanistan, mainly in the “Pashtun belt”, to obtain the ground truth on the effectiveness of the team’s pre-deployment training. After briefing Commander ISAF Joint Command (IJC) and Commander ISAF on how to implement best practices, he was designated to lead the ISAF SFA workshop, which gathered 90 participants from 33 nations and 18 Commands to realign SFA training requirements. This workshop developed the ISAF SFA Guide 1.0, which now acts as the baseline guidance for the present NATO mission in Afghanistan; Resolute Support and NATO SFA doctrine development. A complete training package was developed and introduced to all NATO pre-deployment training events and key strategic decision makers.