Fat to Fight

Rurik sends this article from the Daily Mail in which a German Parliamentary report complains that German soldiers in Afghanistan are too fat and too drunk to fight the Taliban;

The stunning statistics reveal that in 2007 German forces in northern Afghanistan drank 1.7million pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine.
The troops also downed 896,000 pints of beer in the first six months of this year, the Times reported.
[…]
It showed they lived on beer and sausages while shunning fruit and vegetables.

The parliamentary report claimed that some 40 per cent of all German army personnel are overweight – a higher percentage than in the civilian population.

At the time Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, stated: ‘Plainly put, the soldiers are too fat, exercise too little, and take little care of their diet.’

I’m pretty sure the parliamentarians could look to their left and right while at work and see the same attitude and the results of that attitude. It must be an annual thing to criticize the military – nine months ago they were complaining that the soldiers were too fat and smoke too much;

German soldiers are overweight, smoke too much and do not engage in enough sports, according to a report published Tuesday by the parliamentary commissioner for the defence force. “Male and female soldiers are too fat, partake little in sports and pay too little attention to what they eat,” Reinhold Robbe said in his official report to parliament. He called the situation “shocking.”

Another article in March quotes a commenter;

One blog poster, who identified himself as an officer, said conscription was the real problem, since many non-volunteers weren’t serious soldiers. The army is “full of fatties … making us the laughingstock abroad,” he wrote. “Compared to the British, we’re viewed as pathetic.”

I don’t know, they look OK to me;

Category: Politics