Saturday, June 14, 2008
If you ever thought Belgium was dangerous...
As I was watching the news yesterday, I got to see a bit of a Belgian military training camp held in the Ardennes woods of Belgium. Upon first glance, it looked like something we'd see on American television if we were watching a camp on US Military guys. But then something went amiss - when the "guns" were supposed to shoot, the guys yelled "Pang, pang, pang!" Turns out that Belgium doesn't have enough guns to go around to supply the military for training. They had to use fake guns and make "bang" sounds so the others would know guns were shot. Too funny.
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11 comments:
In the US Army we used to call those John Wayne Bullets.
I wonder if they call them Jean Claude Van Damme bullets here...ok, that was a bad joke.
Thanks for the insight velocycling!
This is why Belgium is not a world power.
That reminds me of my childhood. Playing army and making forts in the woods. We had pretty elaborate sounds for our machine guns and rifles. Later war got real and I remember praying for Vietnam to end.
So sould Belgium become on of the 'outlaws' a la North Korea and launch an attack on us, we should be OK that is if we can manage not to shoot our own troops.
Maybe some ear defenders would stop us from being killed, or maybe we could stop their bullets with some Wonder Woman stylee bangles?
lol, who needs guns anyway.. make love not war :)
did you read they were down on bullets as well.. what an army.
I did hear that it was solely due to the lack of bullets; something about a bullet contract gone awry!
In a small part of a newsmessage I read about the lack of bullets there was also an other small blunder of the Belgian army.
I've tried to translate it the best I can, with my crappy English:
Recently the Belgian department of defense already came in a negative way in the news. They ordered 18 armoured vehicles with a wrong, 90 mm, barrel. Not a single NATO country uses that light/small canons/guns.
They couldn't cancel the order. Secretary of Defense, Pieter De Crem, announced that the vehicles, which costs 70 milion euro (in today dollar-euro exchangesrates, that would be approx 105 milion dollars), will be sold immediatly after arriving.
I'm going to bed now, it's just after midnight here and I have to get up pretty early tomorr.... eh... today! No more than 5 hours sleep tonight, I guess!
Ik hoop dat het morgen mooi weer is in België!
Cheers!
Michel
hi michel:
Yes, mooi weer so far! 20 deg C bewolkt.
I hadn't heard the story about the military trucks, so thanks for the update. I wonder what happened to the guy who ordered incorrectly? I'd hate to be him. Then again, I suppose his punishment won't be that bad; he is in belgium.
HA! Maybe they'll put him in front of the firing squad :)
Hey Christine, we saw that item and too and my boys thought that was hilarious! Pang, pang, pang was heard all throughout the house all day!
Stefaan actually was one of the last ones to do required military service and he remembers that they each only got so many bullets to practice with and then it was "pretend".
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