I think Bruce said it best, even if it was “drama” back then. Or maybe drama is the more appropriate word here doch (after all).

Oh Brother. Non-combat troops not taking part in any, uh, combat and the latest spin is that the Bundeswehr guys stationed in Afghanistan can’t handle the strain of it all anymore and are post-traumatized from all the, well, road building and school building and making friends and having to be  “the good guys” all the time. And that’s why they’re dropping from PTBS like flies these days. PTBS is a new German sickness that has to do with post-traumatic strain or something. I guess it’s just too much of a strain to hang around the post all day, and that can be very traumatic.

Take this guy here. I don’t wish a suicide bomb attack on anybody, honestly, and he got through this without any physical injury, miraculously, thankfully, and more power to you. But what then? In Germany that means early retirement time with 45. No wonder Berlin refuses to send any troops to actually fight anywhere. They’d go broke in three weeks.

And speaking of Berlin, the timing of this new PTBS craze strikes me a bit funny (ha, ha, they had a show about it on ZDF the other night and it’s in all the papers today). Foreign Minister Steinmeier is visiting Hillary C. herself in Washington as you read this. If a change to Germany’s Afghanistan policy ever gets brought up, the President has threatened to do so in the past, Steinmeier can always point to this new development, I guess. Germany’s at the breaking point now, you see.

„Deutsche Soldaten mit Kriegstraumatisierung. Ihre Zahl wächst rasant.“