Sailors from Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System (AAMDS), recently completed Romanian language lessons to prepare for their upcoming deployment to Deveselu, Romania.

The Aegis Ashore Academy provides Sailors with a two-week language course, as well as additional cultural training, to get the teams deployment ready. The Aegis Academy is then followed by specific job training at the Aegis Ashore Team Trainer (AATT) Facility in Gallery Hall at Dam Neck Annex. The AATT facility contains a mock-up of the combat information center being built at the host nation site in Romania. It provides Sailors and teams the opportunity to experience working with the system and to certify for operations prior to deployment.

"Having established the first command like this in Europe, learning Romanian will assist us in becoming better ambassadors for the U.S.," said Information Systems Technician 1st Class (IDW/SW) Janice Collier, a Norfolk native.

In addition to the Romanian language lessons, Sailors also learned about a variety of subjects, such as important cultural differences, behaviors, key phrases and words and local military ranks.

"The language course is of great significance to our upcoming deployment. Our Navy, as well as all of our armed forces, is built on diversity. Being able to communicate with personnel you will be working with is paramount," said Operations Specialist 2nd Class (SW/AW) Socorro Trujillo, a native of Bakersfield, California. "We will be serving alongside Romanian forces on the first stationary ballistic missile defense facility in support of NATO allies."

Although the course mainly covers essential subjects, Dr. Uliana Gancea, instructor and assistant professor at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, also teaches Sailors topics that they can enjoy on liberty such as traveling and enjoying local cuisine.

"It is going to be nice to be able to get around without attracting too much attention or appearing like a tourist," said Trujillo. "The final day of the language course, the entire team participated in a potluck of Romanian cuisine to give you something to look forward to out in town. Who doesn't like a good meal?"

The first rotation of Sailors is set deploy to the new command in April. Aegis Ashore is a land-based capability of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System to provide coverage of Southern Europe. It is an efficient, effective and evolutionary employment of proven technology forward deployed in support of national security and defense of our allies and partners.

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