page_title: Franciszek Gągor
section_title: Military Service
hierarchical_section_title: Franciszek Gągor / Military Service
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is welcomed to Warsaw, Poland, by Gen. Franciszek Gagor, chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, with a full-honors ceremony, June 29, 2009. Mullen is concluding a six-day trip to Europe visiting defense counterparts in Russia and Poland by attending the U.S. European Command change-of-command ceremony in Stuttgart, Germany.
context_page_description: Franciszek Gągor was a Polish general, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces between 2006 and 2010.
  He died in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near Smolensk with the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński.
context_section_description: He served in the 2nd Tank Regiment in the 1973 as an officer in a Self-Propelled Artillery unit. Afterwards, he became  an  operations  and  executive  officer responsible for planning and operational activities in United Nations missions.
  In 1978 he was posted to the Mechanized Infantry Officer College in Wrocław, where he lectured  on  preparations  and  training  of  Polish  contingents  designated  for peacekeeping  operations  until  1988  and,  during  that  time,  took  an  active  part  in 
  UNDOF  operations  (1980–1981 and  1985–1986)  as  an  operations  officer.
  Between 1988 and 1990 General Gągor served at UNDOF HQ as Deputy Chief of Logistics.
  In 1991  he  was an executive officer/second-in-command at the Polish Military Contingent for Desert Storm Operation.  He later became the Deputy Sector Commander of UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation mission UNIKOM between 1991 and 1992.
  In 1993, as a Colonel, he became the Chief of Polish Armed Forces Peacekeeping Division of the Polish Armed Forces.
  He was a key member of the Polish Armed Forces preparations team for Polish accession to NATO, taking care of initial and first rounds of NATO Defence Planning for Poland.
  He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1997. 
  In August 2003, he returned to UNDOF after being appointed by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as its Head of Mission and Force Commander.
  On 27 February 2006, Gagor was made  Chief of General Staff of the Polish 
  Armed Forces upon appointment by the President of Poland. He was promoted to General on 3 May 2006.
  Along with Krzysztof Paszkowski, he wrote the book: "Defense Doctrine of the Polish Republic for Peacekeeping Operations."
  Gen. Gągor is an author of numerous articles and publications on military affairs and co-operation, defence transformation and armed forces modernization.
caption: Gagor with Mike Mullen.
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