Originally apppeared at ZeroHedge
No, this is not The Onion.
Dutch military officials forgot to buy winter clothes for their navy soldiers ahead of a winter exercise in Central Norway, and have now resorted to asking the soldiers to go to the stores themselves and buy their own warm clothes… seemingly having forgotten that it can get a little chilly in the Norwegian mountains this time of year…
In what had to be re-read and re-translated numerous times to believe it, Aftenposten reports that around 1,000 soldiers have now been told to go to the store and get warmer clothes as soon as possible, after special Dutch parliamentary decision was made to ensure funds were made available.
Secretary of State Barbara Visser had to assure politicians from both the government parties and the opposition that soldiers attending the Trident Juncture NATO exercise in Norway from October-November will not have to cover the cost of winter clothes from their own pocket, promising that the soldiers will receive an advance of 1000 euros each.
The Dutch Defense regularly sends marines and elite forces to winter training in Norway, but in this case, according to Visser, they had not expected it to get very cold in Norway late in the fall, since earlier experiences from the same season in Lithuania indicated that warm clothes are not required.
Here’s a map to help…
All of which is even more farcical since NATO detail the goal of the Trident Juncture exercise:
“Trident Juncture will test NATO’s ability to train and operate together, also in the northern parts of the NATO area. It will also test the Alliance’s ability to operate in cold weather and difficult terrain.”
Politicians from most parties in parliament reacted with disbelief when the newspaper de Telegraaf revealed that the Armed Forces do not have warm clothes for their soldiers.
For politicians it’s a mystery how to get in this situation. There is money set aside for the purchase of warm clothes and Dutch companies say they can deliver. But the Armed Forces purchasing department, called the CPU, has not managed to get what it needs.
In Parliament, Visser could not explain what has gone wrong, other than that the exercise may have moved to colder areas.
We wonder if President Trump has heard how efficient and prepared one of his NATO allies really is…
Lol, and yet they will preach about the low IQ sub-Saharan Africans, but who is more dumb? Allow 7th Century savages into your no borders cuntry, tell the population we are all the same and forget to clothe the military for Winter.
Yeah, NL deserves to fall completely into the sea.
Maybe Canada can send them some gear, and maybe a dogsled. lol!
Hey…. Russia is much closer and they could send them some real cold weather gear!!! LOL
That is true! We will send them s`mores, and poutine. :-)
Forgotten or just greed. In the old days, soldiers had to pay for their uniform and equipment.
It`s a bit ironic, also Hitler sent an army of 1.2 million men to Russia in summer clothes.
Wehrmacht soldiers for operation Barbarosa were in numbers 3,5 to 5,5 milion (different sources provide different numbers)
This must be the number for all Axis forces.
Including the Romanian armies, who where not that combat effective.
Some say they where equipped to fight WW1. :)
and so few killed 30 000 000 russians?
Putinbeater, I thought I blocked you.
No wait, you had a different name at the time.
hahaha, facts are painful for you, aren´t they? :DDD
Deir Ezzor was always the 1st priority before taking Al Bukama Nonbeater.
That’s a fact. :DDD
I think hes solomon lol!
You should come back as renamed Solomon again.
This would be way cool. Hope things are going well.
An officer can stand his ground. :)
Fascists in SF hate the name solomon
But they went there in the summer. Can’t send your troops into battle in winter clothing while its hot now can we. And the Wehrmacht did have winter clothes, they were just unable to supply them due to poor logistics. It would appear that when you invade another country the size of a continent and scorched earth policy and poor weather destroys all the roads and railroads, then its probably hard to ship those clothes to the frontline. Even worse if you also have to ship in all the other supplies of war. Like fuel, food, spare parts and ammunition.
If the Dutch changed enough Norwegian Kroner, then the Chinese jerseys in the Norwegian shops are gone be sold out fast…
It would appear the Dutch government used up all the clothing budget when they outfitted their favorite headchoppers in Syria instead. All the things the Dutch military always seems to lack, uniforms, communication gear, they all got free of charge, courtesy of the Dutch tax payer.
Somewhere in a desert cave there is a toothless jihadi cursing the useless pallets of parkas and winter gloves the infidels dropped from their plane.
Dude, you made me almost spray my drink over my laptop! :D
There are worse things, in spite this article’s attempt to make NATO look bad, there are worse things. Since the USSR was defeated most NATO militaries were more or less neglected and it should not be surprising that admin errors delayed important gear like this. The commander might have decided to chance the weather thinking his soldiers could tough out and make do but then the weather didn’t cooperate and they were stranded in a field camp.
BTW, there are a lot of articles saying that the US and allies will implode due the extreme military spending, those people either don’t know or are simply ignoring how huge the US economy is when you look at these statistics.
You’re right. We really have got no clue how huge the us economy is.We only know that it has to print dollars to make it.
Not only print dollars.
Coupled with the dollar making are huge misallocations of resources labeled proudly as ‘gdp’ and ‘growth’ despite the ‘economic’ activity leaving nothing but wanton destruction in its wake.
GDP
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
Debt
https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/debt_central.php#agency
But a lot of debt is hidden in unfunded pension liabilities, student debt and so on. Some estimates are up to 60 trillion or more.
Structural federal deficit is projected to exceed 1 trillion a year.
The US is not at the level of Japan yet but is rivaling Italy.
I could write an essay debunking this but I know you would sinply ignore it.
Mute.
1000 euros is a pretty good amount.
The Dutch soldiers can afford to pick up new ice skates for their Norway vacation. :)
Don’t sweat it… No, really, you won’t sweat it.
Just pretend the ship carrying supplies was sunk, and this is life now.
Good character building for the boys.
Hahahaha what a retarded govt
Guess the Dutch were short of money after paying 12 million to the White helmets and at least 25 million to jihadists for pickup trucks, communication equipment and yes military uniforms. So at least the jihadists were not left in the cold.