The Wikipedia article indicates that Prince Hans-Adam owns vineyards. If we find out that they sent a trade delegation to the U.S. to protest vintage marque infringement during the early years of the Cold War, and it arrived during an air raid drill, Leonard Wibberley has a lot of questions to answer! 
(But it would explain why Lichtenstein was carefully left alone by giant expansionist powers :eek: )
There’s a documentary about it: “The Mouse that Roared.” Happened sometime back in the 50s or 60s. Quite the international hubbub, I believe.
Am I the only one who can’t get this out of my head?
A Knight’s Tale (2001)
Hey, stop picking on those Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys.
I love that book.
Jim
lol
As much as I personaly love Lichtenstein and all it stands for, this is so much a non-incident, it’s freakin’ hilarious.
Also: Do they have any of those dudes who use swords, but are so fast that they can, like, beat dudes who use guns? I saw a documentary about them… you’d think they’d have some footage of them, but it was all animated.
I’d just like to have been the fliege on the wall when this company commander had to explain his little invasion to his commanders.
When I read the thread title I chuckled.
Then I followed levdrakon’s link to read the article.
It had an ad for Capital One Bank. (you know, the ones with the barbarian hordes)
That was even funnier.
From what I understand, if you have enough cash you can rent the entire country of Liechtenstein for a private event. Maybe these guys were a crack team of party planners scoping out the venue.
Perhaps they were Finlandia Swiss…?
I heard it’s so small, they’re gonna have the whole country carpeted.
(An old joke from the Dudley Moore movie Arthur)
John McPhee, for one. He wrote a whole book about it: La Place de la Concorde Suisse. I’m assuming alphaboi867 was quoting McPhee quoting one of the people he interviewed for the book, who said “Switzerland does not have an army . . . Switzerland is an army.” It’s really a fun read – there are times when the reality of Swiss Army training manoeuvres is just about as surreal as it sounds. But in military circles, the Swiss Army is very highly regarded; supposedly, the Israeli Army modeled itself on the Swiss.
They don’t have to be fast, just accurate.
“Touristenfahrten”! (Number 2) It smells fishy to me.
In related Swiss military matters, the army has suffered a crushing defeat within its own borders
The Swiss are not to be scoffed at, aside from the bridges and tunnels pre-armed to be blown up in the case of an invasion there are apparantly F-18s ready to spring forth from hidden tunnels, propelled by steam catapults. Really, the Swiss are bigger nuts than the Prussians/Germans.
I read an article in a National Geographic magazine from the early 1960s that covered some of the Swiss preparedness for an invasion (presumably by Ze Germans or The Russians). Besides bunkers in the mountains full of tanks and guns, the road tunnels and bridges were rigged with explosives, every male in the country over 17 had an Assault Rifle and ammunition in the wardrobe, and there were disguised pillboxes and gun emplacements all over the show, including automated Sentry Guns concealed in tree stumps!
The whole country sounded a lot like a Survivalist’s Wet Dream in that regard, actually…
Well, my German colleagues complaints about our Swiss colleagues apparently are summed up by the line “they’re more German than we are!” I’m too afraid to ask what is that supposed to mean.
Or a giant virtual reality shoot 'em up perhaps?
F-18’s in tunnels? Where would they land?
From discussion with a friend of mine who was in the Swiss army, I gather that the comic-opera Swiss army wouldn’t last 15 minutes against a real army. The real problem is there’s no reason anymore to take national defense seriously, and consequently no one does. I personally think they should drop the pretense.