Thank you very much.
General, I will just tell you that I am proud to have served in the Canadian Armed Forces. I know your achievements are excellent, and our soldiers are excellent soldiers, General.
A large component of readiness is ensuring interoperability between the members of the Canadian Forces and our allies in disaster relief, peacekeeping, and peace-making operations. For example, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan involved the cooperation of many international partners. What are some lessons learned by the army from working with these international allies? How important is this one for preparation of readiness with the rapidity of situations that are today in the world?
I can tell you one experience that I had, and I was proud of it. We had an operation in Bosnia between the British troops and the Hungarian troops. I was the Canadian responsible for engineering, as I was the engineering adviser to the commander. The deputy commander of the task force in Banja Luka told me: oh, you speak Hungarian, you are not anymore the engineer, you will be the liaison officer for conducting these operations; for various reasons, the interoperability of the communication systems is not working.
So I was proud that I was a Canadian doing this work. I am emphasizing this that is very important, because we are not acting in isolation today in the operation.