page_title: Task Force East
section_title: Joint Task Force-East/Task Force-East 2009
hierarchical_section_title: Task Force East / Joint Task Force-East/Task Force-East 2009
caption_attribution_description: English: CHERNITSA, Bulgaria - U.S. Army Spc. Brandon A. Reiter, a native of Cascade, Mont., and a medic attached to the 212th Combat Support Hospital for support of a medical assistance mission, uses an auto refractor to estimate a patient's prescription on Sept. 3 at the village's cultural and community center. More than 250 pairs of eyeglasses were distributed by the optometrist and general practitioners during three-days at the village.
context_page_description: Black Sea Area Support Team is a United States European Command initiative executed by U.S. Army Europe designed to strengthen relationships between the United States and its Eastern European allies. This program is an innovative element of the Theater Security Cooperation program that focuses on enhancing partner capacity and fostering regional cooperation. TF-East provides the U.S. and its partners in Romania and Bulgaria with training facilities and, currently, a periodic integrated combined staff that stands up to facilitate combined training.
  Exercises at BS-AST hone U.S. and host nation-invited NATO partner nations’ ability to deploy forces and operate in austere conditions away from home stations. It enables training participants to learn from each other and improve their capabilities.
  Operations in Romania and Bulgaria also provide the U.S. and its partners the opportunity to engage in and demonstrate the continuance of peaceful and friendly international relations through combined training using host nation installations to support and facilitate rotational training activities.
context_section_description: Commanded by Col. Gary R. Russ, the 2009 TF-East rotation in both Romania and Bulgaria included, for the first time, inclusion of approximately 30 Stryker combat vehicles in each country along with about the same number of Romanian and Bulgarian armored personnel carriers.  The 2009 rotation was the first rotation with concurrent training for the duration of the rotation in both countries from the first week of August to the end of October.
  In Romania, the rotation included approximately 1,600 personnel including U.S., Romanian military and civilian support and the rotational units.  Approximately 180 soldiers were from the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 176th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion headquartered in Johnson City, Tenn.; nearly 450 soldiers were from the 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment from Vilseck, Germany. Romanian personnel numbered about 600 with service members from the 1st Infantry Division to include the 33rd Mountain Troop Battalion, Posada.
  
    
  U.S. units training in Bulgaria included over 1,400 personnel including soldiers from the Tennessee Army National Guard's 1-181st Field Artillery Battalion out of Chattanooga, Tenn.; 2nd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, from Vilseck, Germany, and the Tennessee Army National Guard's 117th Military Police Battalion.  Over 500 Bulgarian Land Forces participated including the 4th Artillery Regiment of Asenovgrad; 68th Special Forces Brigade from Plovdiv; 61st Mechanized Brigade of Karlovo; 5th Mechanized Brigade of Pleven; and Center for Preparation of Tank Specialists out of Sliven.
  Other rotational activities included humanitarian civic assistance construction missions conducted by U.S. Navy Seabees in partnership with Romanian and Bulgarian Land Force engineers. With an average cost of approximately $15,000 in materials per project over the last two years, the U.S. Department of Defense-funded program executed locally by TF-East included renovations of public facilities to include kindergartens, community centers, medical facilities and school fences.
  During the 2009 rotation, approximately $185,000 in HCA funds were spent supporting five projects in Bulgaria and four in Romania.  Since 2007,  about 38 projects have been completed in the communities around the TF-East operational areas in Bulgaria and Romania.  The HCA missions are intended to help the local communities, build positive relations, and help set conditions for the success of TF-East.
  TF-East also executed medical HCA missions during 2009 rotation helping approximately 3,700 local people in 17 different communities in and around the JTF-East operational area in both Bulgaria (9 villages) and Romania (8 villages). In partnership with Romanian and Bulgarian military and community medical professionals, an 11-member U.S. medical team provided medical and dental screenings, public health education and optometry screenings to include distributing nearly 3,400 eyeglasses to people who couldn't otherwise afford them. In addition, TF-East acquired and distributed $18,000 of locally purchased U.S. HCA program-funded pharmaceuticals for dispensing to locals free of charge by the community medical professionals in Romania.  The drugs were specifically purchased to target the main health issues identified by the HCA medical team during the screenings.
caption: US military medics provide medical assistance in Bulgaria.
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