Later this week the first class of Afghan students will graduate from the NATO basic armorer course. SSgt Rachel Martinez writes …

The NATO basic armorer course is a six-week course designed to familiarize soldiers and teach them basic maintenance on the variety of NATO weapons they can expect to see and use in the field. The first class of students is scheduled to graduate May 15.

…

Bullard is the main mentor for the NATO basic armorer course. During the course, students are taught armor room operations, with focus on control and accountability of weapons. They also learn about the M-9 pistol, M-16 rifle, M203 grenade launcher, M-249 squad automatic weapon, M-240B machine gun and .50-caliber machine gun. The final week of instruction covers former Warsaw Pact weapons.

“The class prepares them pretty good because they’ve never used NATO weapons before until our class,” Bullard added. “They might have held them and touched them, but they’ve never physically broke them down until they got to our class.”

[ Many thanks to Col Breazile for emailing me the link. ]