Dutch Troops Pull Out
 

Wooden shoe brigade heads back to the low country, land of Van der Sloot. There are dikes to protect.
Story
They were Non-Provocative:rolleyes:

And now NATO can award 1,900 "Courageous Restraint" medals. :rolleyes:

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

With Non-Provocative device.
It's either a pansy or a weenie. I forget which.;)

Pansy - a weenie would pose a threat to half the Dutch force and a treat to the other half. ;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

What was I thinking? It's a Tulip.
Or a two lip.;)

"Pull out??? It doesn't sound manly to me.". (Thank you, George Carlin. RIP)

Beat me to it.

OTOH...while the Dutch exodus is, "not expected to affect conditions on the ground," it does mean that someone else needs to pick up the loose ends they'll leave behind...thus straining our resources yet again.

The Dutch military is unionized.

Probably a strike. Doubt that they will stay to picket though.

Too scary.

TR

It's a shame. The Dutch used to have what it takes. My son's grandfather was an FO in the Dutch Artillery. His battery fought until they were overrun by the Nazis. He was taken prisoner and taken to a camp where they did medical experiments on him. Then they used him as slave labor in their sub pens. He was released after the war and never complained about what had happened to him.

His wife was in the Dutch resistence. She worked in the rail station giving intel on German troop train movements. During Market Garden she went to an evasion point and found a Canadian flyer who'd been shot down. She got him civilian clothes and had him pedal her bicycle with her on the handle bars. She told him to let her do the talking if they ran into Germans. She got him to the next leg in the evasion route - a monestary. The pilot made it home and looked her up after they immigrated to the US.

The bravest thing their family did was in the initial occupation of the Netherlands. They wore yellow stars of David on their clothes in protest for the treatment of their Jewish neighbors. They did this until they were asked to stop by their Jewish friends. Their friends didn't want them to have the same fate that awaited them. They said it with tears running down their cheeks in gratitude for their bravery and their love.

I fear that there aren't many like those brave souls left. It's a shame.

UN
 

I do not know of a damn thing the UN can do? Does anyone?

What a shame to the testimony of those brave grandparents.............:(

Big Teddy :munchin

Guys,

All kidding aside - I spent quite a bit of time with the Dutch military and made many good friends there - they have issues like everyone and are also responsive to what sometimes seems to be the whims of their collective national will and political leadership, as do we - however, I would advise not under-estimating them when riled or, as was the case during WW2, occupied - they are proud, hard-headed, and fighters when stirred up, but otherwise I always found them to be a rather gregarious and magnaminous group of people as a whole.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

No doubting the Dutch can fight. My last name is Dutch. My ancestors on my father's side wore wood shoes.

But boy do they have some political problems!:mad: