|
Weather 
Friday: Cold and sunny everywhere. Heavy frost at night. Similar Saturday but thaw possible Sunday
     |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Army needs two years to recover from Afghanistan, says chiefThursday 09 September 2010 It will take the Dutch army two years to fully recover from the mission in Afghanistan commander Rob Bertholee says in Thursday's Volkskrant. Not only has a lot of equipment been damaged, but training has been disrupted and some units broken up. Bertholee said he will need two years to make sure his brigades are once again 'complete entities', a situation which has been compounded by cash shortages. Bertholee told the paper the consequences of the financial constraints are 'very embarrassing'. 'It has happened that new soldiers find their footwear is 'being ordered'. That means they have to start without boots.' The Netherlands began pulling its forces out of Afghanistan in August, four years after if first went in. On average, 1,400 Dutch soldiers served in the region at any one time © DutchNews.nl
It will take at least 2000 years for the Afghan people to recover from foreign invasions. I'd say get out, come home, stop killing and stop whining. By Alex Jones | September 9, 2010 12:50 PM As an American, I find this news report could be written about the American military after Iraq and Afghanistan. The USA military has been weakened too by its participation in these two conflicts. By Walter Haan | September 9, 2010 12:51 PM The only way to train an army for battle is to put them in one. What about the millions of Euros in equipment that were left behind. I think the commander is really just asking for more money, which he is not likely to get. By Scottie | September 9, 2010 1:08 PM I think that's really disrespectful to men and women who have served in this war. If you care to read (from the safety of your armchair) the article properly, it says the army can't supply footwear to new recruits: ie, it is the army itself who needs time to restock, and 'recover' financially, rather than the attitude of the serving personnel. Pip, you should be ashamed of your comments. Perhaps you should 'adventure holiday' in Afganistan - now - to see what these men and women who you criticise faced every day. By osita | September 9, 2010 10:10 PM @ Osita - Maybe you would like to read this and learn about the brutality Afghan civilians face at the hands of the men and women you reserve your respect for.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers By Deep Throat | September 10, 2010 11:56 AM Osita, Pip is right. Being in army is like a super cool camp normally, only thing that you cannot leave upon your wish or come back. So besides that and Afghanistan (total bullocks about the war there. Noone really asked them to cross the globe for a war that is within one country - only war that made sense was WW1 and 2 - all the rest conflicts driven mainly by economical/financial/ambitions). So the rest of the life for dutch army, trainings, practices, sharing experience with the rest of the world. yeah, shame there is no money for footwear now that's true, but according to NATO requirements military gets the biggest % GDP eventually, so hopefully will be ok. By Jos | September 10, 2010 6:03 PM
Comments have been closed for this article. |
| Newsletter | | | RSS | | | Advertising | | | Business services | | | Mobile | | | Friends | | | Contact | | | About us | | | Tell a Friend |
|
Training has been disrupted by doing the job they are training to do? Sometimes i think the Dutch military are a waste of space.
"On average, 1,400 Dutch soldiers served in the region at any one time"... well as the military in NL has 52,000 serving personel i can now see how this was disruptive.
I think the military forget that they signed up to do a job, not just to go on all expense paid adventure holidays all year round.
By Pip | September 9, 2010 9:30 AM