Beerwehr
The German soldier in Afghanistan downs 25 bottles of wine and 485 pints of beer a year.* This follows news that your average goose-stepper is too fat and lazy, sausage-addicted, and his mission to train Afghan cops is a “miserable failure.” Daily Mail:
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.
…
The statistics only add to the embarrassment of the country’s federal army, 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.
* That’s 90,000 bottles of plonk and 1.7 million pints divided by 3,500 Fritzes in 2007, as cited by the Daily Mail. Your average Brit and GI Joe … zero, not counting what they are able to acquire unofficially.
Some of those Jerries in that photo up there look like they could use a hair of the dog. And Dieter, second from the left in the background, is definitely a sausage enthusiast. But as Daniel Dravot told Peachy Carnahan on an earlier (strong drink-free) military adventure into far Kafiristan, “Different countries, different cultures, Peachy. Musn’t judge.”
Here’s an idea. Double the individual ration, compliments of us, if the bucketheads are willing to multiply their force by 10 and actually go into battle against the Taliban. Under US or Brit command. To quote Dravot again:
Now listen to me, you benighted muckers. We’re going to teach you soldiering. The world’s noblest profession. When we’re done with you, you’ll be able to slaughter your enemies like civilized men.
Who would have thought the spike-tops would ever need those ill-disciplined, gum-chewing Americans or the Tommies of Dunkirk fame to teach them soldiering? The devilish plot hatched by Churchill and FDR to flatten the Hienies into pacificism worked beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. But it’s time to move beyond the past and see if the Krauts can actually make themselves useful in the world. Aside from the BMWs, that is.
In Afghanistan, a simple “no kill, no swill” rule might do it. Wax a jihadi, and the Johnsonville Brats are on Uncle Sam tonight. Could work. In fact, how about US taxpayer subsidies for domestic German civilian stein-hoists, all the knockwurst du kannst fressen, if they’re willing to step up to the foreign policy plate? Go for Deutschland’s soft unterbelly.
Hang on. That story doesn’t mention schnapps. What’s the schnapps ration? They aren’t sending Siegfrieds anywhere near a combat zone without a little Dutch courage, are they?
Topics: Afghanistan, Germans, Man Who Would Be King, beer, military, wine
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:19 pm on Wednesday, December 3, 2008
3 Responses to “Beerwehr”
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December 4th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Fat, drunken German soldiers. Didn’t we call them Hessians and kick their rears about 230 years ago. The USA should kick NATO out and take over this war. The Aussies can stay if they want.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
The German kaserne, “Camp Warehouse” used to put out a news letter, when I was in Afghanistan, 2004-2005. Every issue was a series of pictures of Bundeswehr drinking, Bundeswehr drinking and dressing in drag for a skit, Bundeswehr drinking even more heavily than you thought possible in a war zone…
Mein Gott, what happened to the army that used to be ready for the Warsaw Pact back in the 1980s…?
December 20th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
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