 It's a resonating part of the Minnesota National Guard, Croatia military partnership that it is built on a bedrock of professionalism knowledge and knowing that you're there to share experiences. The purpose of the state partnership program really came about after the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 when they dissolved the Soviet Union they also dissolved the Warsaw Pact which of course was our predominant planned enemy during the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed suddenly all of these nations that had previously been inside the Soviet sphere and were interested in reaching out to the West. Organizationally I think the most resonating takeaway from this partnership actually goes back to 2010 and that was when the Minnesota Army National Guard did a operational mentorship and liaison team partnered with Croatia so they deployed to Afghanistan. That right there is such a significant measure of operational success for this partnership program it shows interoperability in a combat situation. We got to go experience some amazing things as we went from district center to district center really addressing the security plans in preparation for the second national election. We were working with Afghan national police chiefs to assess what we could do to help them secure their polling sites so that the Afghans felt more comfortable to come vote and that Taliban weren't you know weren't trying to oppress them to come to the voting sites and then we had the opportunity to escort a lot of those votes to the city centers for counties. I thought that was really really interesting and really cool to be a part of a national election at a country that was only on its second national election ever so yeah from that part I thought it was a huge achievement. I just remember growing as an individual coming out of that and meeting some very very competent Croatian soldiers that I have gained a significantly larger respect for what that country is capable of doing especially as they haven't been a country that long and a standing military for that long but they do have some very proficient soldiers and then the United States you know I believe this to be the best military in the world but that doesn't mean we're that much better at everything right there's always something you can take from another nation another soldier that you can grow with and bring back to your unit. The environment is complex and it crosses borders and we need partners it's not you know you can't do things unilaterally you really have to have great relationships and partners to deal with these complex issues that span the globe and so you know the Minnesota Army National Guard with our partners in the international guard we're deploying on a constant basis all over the world so as long as we keep deploying to various parts of the world to deal with these complex issues we really won't be successful without our partners.