10th CAF cadets generation oath ceremony in Zagreb

By this act they joined the Croatian Armed Forces, pledged allegiance to the Homeland, but to achieve their ultimate goal, to become an officer of the Croatian Armed Forces, many challenges, education, mastering demanding military skills and knowledge await them.

“I congratulate you on the challenge that you have accepted as those who can overcome these challenges”, said to the cadets President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Ivo Josipović, adding that they should never forget that Croatia was proud of them and that they should be proud of Croatia. He pointed out that education and training was necessary for all professions including the military profession.

Along with President Josipović, the ceremony was attended by the Deputy Minister of Defence Višnja Tafra, Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Drago Lovrić, CMA Director Lieutenant General Slavko Barić, and other CAF senior officials, parents, relatives and friends of cadets.
Congratulating the cadets, the Deputy Defence Minister Tafra said that by choosing the military profession they expressed a desire to contribute to the development of the modern CAF. Before you, as Tafra noted, were numerous challenges, studying, training, but even now as a cadet one can show what kind of officer will be in the future.
General Lovrić said that by giving the oath and joining CAF for cadets represented the start of a career and life path that could not be compared with any other civilian profession. A lot of efforts and perseverance, years of schooling await them, after which they will be able to make decisions, manage the units and therefore the Armed Forces.
Cadets were also congratulated by the Director of the Military Academy General Barić: “The beginning of studying is connected with a number of unknowns. Up to you is to learn, work, listen to the parents, acquire new skills and new knowledge”, General Barić said, adding that cadets were strong just as much as they acquire new knowledge and skills.
The Cadet project is a civil-military schooling within which the Ministry of Defence provide scholarships to  student-cadets from the first year of study. Training program has been tailored to the needs of all the three CAF services. After graduating, cadets are submitted to active military service and send to the basic officer training upon after they receive a first officer’s rank and are assigned to the duty in the Croatian Armed Forces and troops.
Out of 56 cadets of the 10th generation, with whom the MOD has signed scholarship agreement, 10 are women and 46 are men.

As part of the ceremony at the Croatian Military Academy, President Ivo Josipović discovered a bust of the Croatian Ban and military leader Petar Zrinski in front of the Officer’s Club by which the CMA bear its name. The bust is the work of the sculptor Mihael Štebih.