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Afghanistan
German soldiers are 'too fat to fight' Taliban because they drink so much
2008-12-04
They drink too much and they're too fat to fight, that's the damning conclusion of German parliamentary reports into the country's 3,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan.

While British and U.S. troops in the country face a strict ban on alcohol, their German comrades are allowed two pints a day.

The stunning statistics reveal that in 2007 German forces in northern Afghanistan drank 1.7million pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine. The troops also downed 896,000 pints of beer in the first six months of this year, the Times reported.

The statistics only add to the embarrassment of the country's federal army, Budweiser Bundeswehr, after a report earlier this year found troops to be too fat, smoked too much and didn't exercise enough. It showed they lived on beer and sausages while shunning fruit and vegetables.

The parliamentary report claimed that some 40 per cent of all German army personnel are overweight - a higher percentage than in the civilian population. At the time Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, stated: 'Plainly put, the soldiers are too fat, exercise too little, and take little care of their diet.'

The Times also reported the damning allegation from a senior officer that Germany is failing in its main mission to train the Afghan police. He descibed the efforts as 'a miserable failure'.

Since 2001, 28 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.
Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#15  I've been telling y'all for years the line troops in Germany suck - because theri NCO corps is broken and the officers are all political.

Poland would roll them if they wanted to get pushy - their regulars are tough, hard fighters and are well lead.
Posted by: OldSpook   2008-12-04 21:10  

#14  Procopius2k, I don't disagree that German leadership needed to be fixed wrt 2 world wars. I differ that the lax quality and martial standards of their soldiers is a good thing. Plus, a few classes on the duty of the warrior to disregard unlawful orders from hhq doesn't cause weight gain.
Posted by: Broadhead6   2008-12-04 14:04  

#13  Tell the Germans that the Taliban are holding the beer hostage or something. Then be sure to get out of the way!
Posted by: gorb   2008-12-04 12:31  

#12  I lived in Germany for a year. It is actually very noticable, at least in the city where I was, that there are a lot LESS fat people than there are in Canada. My sister, a family doctor, commented on the same thing when she came to visit me. Her thoughts were that she would prefer to have a patient base that was more like the average German than what she currently has. They are at a healthy weight on average.
Posted by: Chemist   2008-12-04 12:10  

#11  Do the math, that's 1.33 pints of beer and .07 bottles of wine a day per soldier. Not what I'd call an excessive amount. But it looks shockingly big in print and that's what journalism is all about today.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-12-04 10:42  

#10  They may be more effective at training the Afghans than at first glance. A recent US returnee from duty told me he had befriended some in the Afghan ranks, introducing them to vodka and pork chops, which they LOVED. (Don't ask, don't tell how he got them) Islam be damned, they found the recipe to brew their own on the internet! Part of the war is cultural, and beer and brats are preferable to beheading any day, IMO.
Posted by: Thealing Borgia 122   2008-12-04 10:35  

#9  Well, don't count me in on this criticism. After two world wars in the 20th Century and millions of dead to go into the accounting column, I for one am more than happy they've come to embrace the light side of the force [traditional partying Rhineland/Bavaria] rather than revert to the dark side [traditional marching Prussia/Saxony].
Posted by: Procopius2k   2008-12-04 10:13  

#8  Three threads of truth run through Besoeker, JFM and Anonymoose's comments and brought together, pretty much show the state of the German and EU troops today.
Clinton managed to destroy our military in a short 6 months and it is only because we had such good NCOs and a few officers that it didn't become a complete cluster fuck. The Germans have had decades of this crap, they aren't motivated, aren't disciplined, aren't well led and have no real encouragement to do anything.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-12-04 09:50  

#7  Much of this is "piss and curl papers". This is what you get when you send troops on a mission led by bureaucrats, who give them endless rules of what they can't do, and "no-responsibility" missions. Their morale must be in the negative numbers.

This was so bad in Mexico, that it even afflicted their language, creating a common tense of "somebody should do something", whenever something needed to be done.

Imagine what would happen to a combat company of US infantry, if their company commander was Bill Clinton, their platoon leaders were Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Henry Waxman, and their NCOs were equally worthless. Unless the privates mutinied and took charge, they would "drink beer and eat sausages" all day, while their "leaders" whined about how fat they were getting.

"Why don't they eat tofu and bean sprouts, exercise, and go persuade the enemy not to be so mean? (As long as nobody gets hurt.)"
Posted by: Anonymoose   2008-12-04 09:30  

#6  JFM... Correctly or incorrectly so, cultivated by the left (yes there are leftests there as well) the German military legacy of WWII continues to haunt them. Never mind the fact that dozens of German officers and scores of others were executed for the various attempts to assassinate Hitler. The Holocaust rememberence crowd will never let Germany, it's military, or the world forget the past or get behond it. Pol Pot and Joe Stalin must still be chuckling and poking fun at Hitler in hell.

Posted by: Besoeker   2008-12-04 09:26  

#5  Besoeker

I was positively shocked to find German soldiers shopping for beer in groups and in uniform. Perhaps I am a bit old fashioned, but I think that in a serious army (one who really prepares for war , meaning that it must preserve both displine and its public image) this would land you in jail/detention/arrest or whatever you call it for so long that you would get white hair before being released.

Also: remember, they have lost 28 men and they already have recruiting problems. The once fearsome Germans have become poodles.
Posted by: JFM   2008-12-04 08:57  

#4  Perhaps their real mission is to get the Taliban drunk and slow?
Posted by: ed   2008-12-04 08:36  

#3  Years ago I had the pleasure of eating a few German field rations. Very civilized. MRE's don't even come close. As far as 'Too fat to fight the Taliban'... well I'm glad they're there, overweight or not. If you took the time to examine some of our crack troops in Forward Operating Bases (FOBS) (non-field soldiers) you might find a bit of excess poundage as well.
Posted by: Besoeker   2008-12-04 07:50  

#2  I prefer them this way. Perhaps they can ship their excess sausage and Beer to Russia. But that might imporve the Russians' diet.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-12-04 06:55  

#1  
I suspect it's eye-opening and embarassing to the Germans to actually work side by side with US troops.


If so, good.
Posted by: lotp   2008-12-04 06:05  

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