Germans Tell Uncle "Nein"

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (DoD? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: Can you imagine the temerity of someone actually saying 'no' to Uncle?




Germans nix latest Grafenwöhr housing plan
By Seth Robson and Marcus Kloeckner
Stars and Stripes
Published: November 22, 2010

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — Plans to build 100 homes for U.S. soldiers and their families near Grafenwöhr Training Area have been scrapped after hundreds of Germans signed a petition against the project.

that countries wouldn't want us expanding the military.

Can you imagine the outcry if Germany had a military base in the US and wanted to expand?

http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/germany/germans-offer-to-look-after-u-s-families-while-grafenwohr-troops-are-deployed-1.126688

"GRAFENWÖHR, Germany – Dozens of German families from small towns around Grafenwöhr Training Area have signed up for a program designed to look after families of the 172nd Infantry Brigade during the unit’s upcoming deployment to Afghanistan."

. . . the justification for keeping troops in Germany is that it is better to keep the facilities, left over from WWII rather than build new ones. That would speak against enlarging facilities all ready there.

Since austerity in the military is currently being required by the overall national economic condition, many will question whether maintaining commitment in other countries, Germany being the most prominent, is justified at the current level.

Even though reducing the number of military personnel is economically counterproductive, stationing them in foreign countries has an adverse effect on the balance of payments. The personnel to some extent support the foreign local economies rather than the domestic one.

Of course, there are those who think on non-economic grounds that stationing soldiers all over the world is an expression of national hubris.

Nice to see the German people helping our military families. Makes me proud to be half German.