The U.S. Embassy in Prague is a home to various sections with very specific missions. One of the Department of Defense (DoD) entities is the Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC). The ODC’s purpose is to promote security assistance, defense cooperation in armaments, and humanitarian assistance initiatives & programs; as well as administering and managing military & education training programs. One way of achieving these goals is an oversight of Czech Republic’s enrollments to courses at the G.C. Marshall Center (GCMC) for Security Studies located in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany. The Center is committed to carrying GEN Marshall’s vision into the 21^st Century through its International Security & Defense Studies Institute that promotes dialogue & understanding among the nations.

The ODC successfully enrolls to GCMC’s short courses roughly 20 students representing Czech Republic each year. Next to short courses, the Center also offers a higher education in a form of MISS = Master of Arts in International Security Studies degree. This Program provides a unique post-graduate education for security professionals & is offered as a joint cooperation between the GCMC & Universitat der Bundeswehr Munchen. This one-year program is designed to prepare international military & civilian students with professional experience for executive positions and comprehensive understanding of international security and connects them to a network of more than 13,000 security professionals around the globe.

In the past 2 years, Czech Republic has successfully enrolled 2 representatives from the Army of the Czech Republic into MISS, with first of them graduating this fall. The Masters Program graduate is LTC Petr Matous, current commander of 43^rd Airborne Regiment in Chrudim. Petr is a University of Defense in Brno graduate, former member of the elite 601^st Special Forces Group, he has also previously served as a Military Attaché to the Office of the Government as well as a Military Advisor to the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. He was also appointed as the Coordinator of the Agenda of Countering Hybrid Interference (Expert Working Group of the National Security Council). He has been deployed multiple times in Africa & Afghanistan for which he has been awarded a Medal for Heroism in combat. He is also an established & successful author of a bestselling book Navzdory [Despite], Petr’s story telling novel of a war veteran “straight from the fight”.

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