Greece is participating in the NATO exercise with a ten-member team of paratroopers of the Special Warfare Command, specifically “green berets” of the 2nd Parachute Squadron from Aspropyrgos.
With the Greek commandos stealing the limelight and absent once again Turkey, which avoids participating in major Allied exercises like “hell and incense”, the paratrooper exercise “FALCON LEAP 22” started and is in full progress with starting at Eindhoven Air Base, Netherlands.
Greece is participating in the NATO exercise with a ten-member team of paratroopers of the Special Warfare Command, specifically “green berets” of the 2nd Parachute Squadron from Aspropyrgos. The exercise started on September 12 and as stated in the announcement of the Dutch Armed Forces which organize it, it will be completed next Thursday, September 22. This is NATO’s largest “technical airborne” exercise in which more than 1000 paratroopers from a total of 13 countries participate.
The Greek paratroopers declare for another year a resounding “presence” and train alongside the top “paratroopers” of the Alliance while the neighboring Turks stay away, as they did last year. And it is not as it seems accidental the decision of the Ankara Staff to “yoke” their country’s participation in the “hawk jump”. They clearly avoid taking part in major NATO exercises especially when Greeks are there with the comparison being inevitable.
After all, recently and specifically at the beginning of August, the experience of the Turkish team at the European Best Sniper Team Competition 2022, which took place in Hohenfels, Germany, was “traumatic”. Where they were forced into a humiliating withdrawal in the middle of the competition under the pretext of the participation of the Cypriot team. The competition was already developing into a nightmare for the Turks with the two Greek Elite Units of the DEP, the Special Paratroopers Department and the 7th MAK but also the Cypriot commandos of the National Guard prevailing state by state. Humiliated, they left after they couldn’t bear to see the ETA Executives take 1st place and the 7th MAK 4th in a competition in which a total of 36 teams participated including SOF from USA, Germany, Poland, Italy and Croatia.
“FALCON LEAP 22” is a high-difficulty multi-objective exercise involving paratroopers from the USA, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, the Czech Republic and Portugal, among others. Includes a variety of both static harness and free fall jumps day and night. It also provides for the dropping of cargo such as heavy weapons and ammunition from transport aircraft. As part of the development of interoperability, the “special dynamite” parachutists exchange opinions and are also trained in personnel and material drop procedures as well as in the planning-implementation of operations.
In the context of extroversion and the pursuit of continuous training with the leaders within NATO and not only GEETHA and the Faculty do not let any opportunity go to waste. And beyond the Special Operations Units the goal is to give the opportunity to all Unit Executives belonging to the newly formed Special Warfare Command to take part in large-scale multinational exercises such as “FALCON LEAP 22”. With the picture so far showing that the level of the Greek commandos is constantly rising. And it is no coincidence that leading Special Operations and Special Forces Units of NATO wish to train alongside the Greek elites.
