Article

2008-12-04 Afghanistan

German soldiers are 'too fat to fight' Taliban because they drink so much

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-12-04 05:41|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 06:05|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 06:55|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 07:50|| Front Page Top

#4 Perhaps their real mission is to get the Taliban drunk and slow?

Posted by ed 2008-12-04 08:36|| 2008-12-04 08:36|| Front Page Top

#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">JFM 2008-12-04 08:57|| 2008-12-04 08:57|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 09:26|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 09:30|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 09:50|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 10:13|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 10:35|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 10:42|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 12:10|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 12:31|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 14:04|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-12-04 21:10|| Front Page Top

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