About a month ago, stories started up that US military folks would be leaving Germany (approximately 12,000). Some Germans were shocked. Some political folks wrote up letters to ask for more reasoning and reflection, hoping the decision would be halted.
Today, if you follow Focus....the areas affected have been put out in the public sector.
From the Air Force, one squadron from Spangdahlem Air Base will be leaving.
For the remainder of folks (Army)....Vilseck, Wildflecken and Grafenwoehr are affected.
Leaving Europe entirely? No. Approximately half will be either in Italy or Poland.....the rest return to the US.
The timeline? Still unannounced but the original hint was that folks would start to leave in the fall of this year.
A big deal for Grafenwoehr? Well....this was the training site for the US in Germany. To be honest, 'Graf' has been a training site for the German Army prior to WW II. You can go back to the early part of the 1800s.....where it was used for military training then.
2 comments:
President* Trump, from one side of his mouth says it is strategic, from the other side he says it is punishment as Germany has not paid their share of NATO for years and has taken advantage of the U.S.
I feel sorry for the troops and their families, especially their families, who now have to pack and move very quickly, and in some cases immediately.
When I was in Weisbaden, I got a call that my company was moving to Italy beginning in one week but I had to leave in two days. My civilian wife to be left behind to do all the moving duties.
I know. I know. I was blessed to have her there and we knew what we were getting into when I enlisted and when she said "I do" yet it is the suits, and especially Captain Bone Spurs, the Commander in Cheat, who could not care less.
In the end, you are stuck playing with the cards dealt. There should have been a schedule implemented in early 1990s as unified Germany occurred, with US installations in Germany closed down within a ten-year period. The cold war officially ended (they even gave out medals).
With the money-deal in the middle of the current mess....you have to wonder, which idiot said the 'magic-number' and why it made any sense (made during the Bush era). With regular Germans (even myself) financing the German military budget, the NATO military budget, US facilities in Germany, and Russian military budget....by buying Russian natural gas via a German company to heat our homes in winter...the stupidity of this whole game makes no sense.
The one amusing thing you notice from last night's German news....from the extreme far left Linke Party, and the extreme far right AfD Party...both were very happy of the lessening of US troops in Germany. It's probably the first time ever, that both groups agreed on the same thing.
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