2009/07/06

New German RoE and a new medal

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http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,634338,00.html

The RoE interpretation got more offensive in the past weeks, and now the RoE have been changed to allow unprovoked use of weapons.

I'm not sure which restricting caveats remain, but I'm not especially curious about it because I'm no fan of the whole Afghanistan mission anyway.

The change was politically necessary because we'll most likely have a change of government this fall. No other coalition was as likely to allow the new RoE as the present one.

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On another note:
Today (6 June 09) Chancellor Merkel awarded four medals for valour to German soldiers.

We had no military medal for valour in action since 1945 (WW3 would have been too short to award any, at least for us). This prompted a campaign and petition for a re-introduction of the Iron Cross.

It took a while till the SecDef picked up the idea and created a new medal: The Ehrenkreuz der Bundeswehr für Tapferkeit (Honour cross of the Bundeswehr for valour).


The four soldiers did apparently rescue comrades and Afghan soldiers in face of multiple secondary explosions.

I heard previously a rumour that Sergej Motz might get it posthumously. He was said to have saved several other soldier's lives before he fell.

S O
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4 comments:

  1. This is an utterly ridiculous award. I don't care for the Iron Cross at all, but this is just ugly, uncreative and lame. It looks like some intern came up with the idea over lunch. And worst of all, it seems like I'm the only one who notices it. :/

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  2. So this means they don't have to make noise anymore to draw attention to themselves, so they receive fire and can then shoot back, like they did under the old rules.

    What an ingenious idea.

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  3. "This is an utterly ridiculous award. I don't care for the Iron Cross at all, but this is just ugly, uncreative and lame. It looks like some intern came up with the idea over lunch. And worst of all, it seems like I'm the only one who notices it. :/"

    Get some far leftist friends, they'll most likely agree. ;)

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  4. "Get some far leftist friends, they'll most likely agree. ;)"

    Well yeah, obviously. They had better looking medals in the DDR, that's for sure. ;)


    Btw, R.I.P. Robert S. McNamara

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