The Minnesota National Guard deployed its latest team to begin training for Afghanistan earlier this week. While the number of soldiers involved is small - just 13 - the task ahead of them is enormous.

The group is the third team from the Minnesota Guard to be dispatched to Afghanistan. Their mission is to work with the Afghan Army to improve soldiering skills. The second team is completing its yearlong deployment in northern Afghanistan near the town of Mazar-I-Sharif and the third team will combine with a group from the Croatian Army to mentor fledgling Afghan security forces. The small teams are expected to play a particularly important role in the U.S. and coalition plans to stabilize Afghan security forces. The hope is to strengthen the Army and National Police to allow multi-national troops to withdraw. When the first OMLT returned to Minnesota in November last year, one of the members, CSM Tony Padilla said progress was slow but significant. "If we want them to hold their own over there we need to be doing this kind of mission where we're training them and eventually we can get out of there," Padilla said. Known officially as Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams and more commonly by the acronym OMLT (pronounced omelette), their work is part of the broader counter-insurgency strategy adopted by the Obama administration late last year. When The Star Tribune visited late last year, the National Guard's OMLT II found their mission slow-going, with AWOL rates for Afghan soldiers extremely high, illiteracy rates even higher and the influences of the former Soviet Union military still pervasive, slowing progress because of ingrained bureaucracy and chain-of-command issues. The teams are hand-picked for their expertise.

"This is a roster of selected individuals whose expertise is needed and whose expertise will be shared," said Minnesota Adjutant General Larry Shellito, who performed a similar function as a young officer in Vietnam.