Lieutenant Colonel Patrick James Christian is the senior US counter-insurgency field advisor with the Colombian Army, and serves as a security assistance advisory team leader in the Caqueta and Putumayo provinces along Colombia’s southern borders with Peru and Ecuador. He and his team work in support of the Colombian Army’s 6th Division which is fighting several Fronts/Brigades of the Colombian Revolutionary Army Front (FARC). LTC Christian is a Special Forces officer with an infantry background, and has deployed to Central and South America as an SF detachment commander for Foreign Internal Defense and Counter Drug Operations as well as disaster relief and counter-sniper missions. He has served in numerous operational and planning positions at the battalion, brigade, group and corps level, including service on the Army Staff in Washington DC. He has served with OPFOR at JRTC and served as an assistant professor of military science at the University of Portland and Portland State University. His undergraduate studies at the University of South Florida and University of New York included majors and a minor in International Relations, History and Pre-Law, and he is currently completing a graduate degree in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University. His military education has included the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, Jungle Expert, Airborne, Spanish Language, Special Reconnaissance Operations, High Risk Survival/Evasion/Resistance & Escape (SEER) Level C, Special Forces Detachment Officer Qualification Course, Combined Arms Staff and Command & General Staff schools among others. LTC Christian has served as a strategic planner in the J3 Homeland Defense in Washington DC where he helped form full spectrum vulnerability assessment teams to conduct CARVER assessments on critical infrastructure within the US and its territories. He has deployed for numerous missions in support of the global war on terror, including service in Darfur Sudan in a Joint SOF advisory mission to the African Union’s Mission in Sudan (AUMIS) where he negotiated with opposing parties to an ongoing genocidal war; to Ethiopia where he built a counterterrorist strike company in the Ogadin border regions with Somalia, and for OIF where he coordinated Joint and Coalition Special Operations missions in Baghdad, Iraq. He is currently writing a book entitled Chasing Sovereignty War and Conflict as Negotiators of State Legitimacy in Four World Wars, which is about war and conflict in the 21st Century. He has also authored a number of professional articles, most recently for Special Warfare Magazine, Special Operations University, USAJFKSWC&S, entitled Brokering the Peace in Sudan: Special Forces officers tackle unique advisory role in Darfur – (Article for Special Warfare Quarterly, March/April Edition 2006 and Meeting the Irregular Warfare Challenge: Developing an Interdisciplinary Approach to Asymmetrical Warfare – Article for Special Warfare Quarterly, Pending Review & Publication 2006)LTC Christian is married to the former Barbara Jean Burkart and maintain their permanent residence in Portland, Oregon.
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