And what exactly is their mission in 2013?
Whoring and drinking.
Make sure the Russkies don’t take West Berlin, of course.
OK, not really. These days their job is to be an army base in Europe. That means supporting US and NATO military missions around the world with logistics, supplies, medical facilities, JAG officers, communications infrastructure, and places to park tanks and stuff. Germany is a lot closer to many spots where our military is deployed.
ETA: Also whoring and drinking.
What do they do all day? Much the same sorts of things that troops stationed in the US do, despite a lack of Indian Wars to keep them occupied. Sitting around motor pools, filling out piles of paperwork, manning hospitals or cooking tasteless slop, depending on their job.
For the US, there’s a big advantage of having combat units placed much closer to possible developing situations in a different area of the world: deploying troops to North Africa from Italy or Germany takes a matter of a couple of hours, rather than a day of travel for troops state-side, for instance.
I thought they were winding down US involvement there. I know the Heidelberg base closed recently.
Consuming tax money to make it easier to fight the war we’ll have for the next generation.
The US has yet to raise a generation in peace. Think about that.
According to Wikipedia, here are lists of the American bases in Germany separated by service:
So there is one Marine base in Germany, two Air Force bases, and no Navy bases. There are a lot of Army bases, but quite a few of them are scheduled to close within the next two years.
You know who else had troops in Germany?
Hey, someone had to say it, and I think the question has been answered.
Ummm… same thing troops do while CONUS. They go to work, train, and support strategic missions.
Pretty much the same as the 47,000 in Japan?
Seems prudent to leave some troops in Europe, then. :rolleyes:
Peace is over-rated.
They’re a safe home base and a forward operations base into the Middle East. You wouldn’t want to make every flight in and out of Afghanistan a direct flight to Maguire (in NJ), now, would you? And our share of NATO forces.
Agreed “some troops”, but fifty-four THOUSAND?
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You’re not some newbie. This was a serious question asked in General Questions. A joke answer isn’t what we need the first thing.
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I suppose I could see the US troops in Japan being useful in backing up the 20,000 US troops in South Korean should North Korea do something stupid.
Also the growing Chinese military is another reason the US troops in Japan may become useful at some point.
I often think how weird it would be for another nation to have troops permanently stationed in the US. For one thing, it would certainly color my opinion of them politically.
[del]US Navy Europe - Souda Bay, Sigonella, Gaeta, and Naples. All active and open.[/del]
Those wily Canadians have a permanent detachment at NORAD, you know.
As someone who was stationed in Germany for two years I stand by my answer. We did other stuff too.