K is for...

Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad is a town in Russia, but situated in a part of Russia between Lithuania and Poland. It used to be part of Prussia and was called Königsbergen until 1946. It lies on the Baltic Sea. But not only is it a town, it is also a naval vessel. And a fairly big one at that!

The name in Cyrillic writing

As I was at the Navy Days in the Netherlands this year, we saw this ship arriving and being moored. It's always amazing how they do that: the steering is somewhere at the back, which goes against all I believe in. Then again, they might be lousy at parallel parking a coach!

This is the letter K for ABC Wednesday. Why not join?

Trust

An actual real-life living snake around my neck

I never realised this morning as I left to go to work, that I would end up with a snake around my neck sometime during the afternoon, but that was what happened. But before that I got ambushed and painted green and black and brown.

The Russian Kaliningrad

It was the first day of the Navy Days, a recurring event in the Netherlands where the Navy shows off its work through their people, ships and other assorted thingymebobs. The first day is always reserved for the invited: veterans and schoolchildren. So, this morning me and two colleagues picked up a bunch of juvenile delinq high school students to take them to the navy yard. After having dropped them off, a couple of us drivers set off to the exhibition-part of the navy yard as well to see what was on offer.

I got quite a few comments looking like this. Why???

There was a big tent with coffee and stands that was filled with veterans, there were ships aplenty, including three foreign ones: the German Siegburg, the British HMS Lancaster and the Russian Kaliningrad which arrived as we were on the dock. There were tank-like things, helicopters, a guy with half his leg gone (I think it was a dummy), old fashioned tents and cots, field toilets and showers and there was a stand where you could get your face painted in camouflage colours. To which my colleague dragged me. As soon as I was only half in the chair, the 'painter' got to work and within a minute I had a green and black and brown face.

Perhaps I should also say that when we were walking along and I saw a little boy with camouflage colours I actually remarked that I would like that as well. Never let it be said that my colleagues are short of memory!

U is for...

UN

This tank is in the United Nations Taskforce colour. The UN taskforce (or the bluehelmets as we call them) have been deployed in several regions in the world over the last few years.

The taskforce is made up of different countries that vary from conflict to conflict. It depends on the conflict itself and the availability of the participating countries. Sometimes only one or two people from one country are in the taskforce because of their special field, other times it's a complete platoon.

The hope is that the independent taskforce will help to provide a peaceful situation for both the people of the country and for the fighting factions. Unfortunately it doesn't always work fast enough and the UN might have to stay for a considerable time.

For more U-words from around the world, please check out ABC Wednesday and join in the fun!

Sardines and tanks

Part of the about 90 coaches waiting until the children have to be picked up again

Every year the Ministry of Defense in the Netherlands organises Open Days where everybody is welcome to see what's happening in the Army, Navy or Airforce. This past weekend was the Army's turn.

Waiting in line to pick up the visitors on Saturday/Sunday

On Friday all the visitors had been invited and about 90 coaches had been roped in to bring all the high school students in: all 4,000+. On Saturday and Sunday it was open to everybody. On Saturday I drove an articulated bus (one of about 110 buses and articulated buses) to get at least part of the 55,000 visitors of that day in. As I said on my Dutch blog: they had to wait in jams before they could park their cars in fields, then they had to wait in jams to be shoved into a bus like sardines and lastly they would wait in line before they could finally enter the compound! It was okay to do though.

The cavalry and the pooper scoopers!

And then yesterday I got the chance to see why all those thousands and thousands come to see, since I had to take one of the army's musical groups. Unfortunately the weather was quite terrible (quite a bit of rain), but it was good fun nonetheless. Anything from antique military vehicles to the newest tank, cavalry to pipe band, several shows of tanks and personel in action (which I didn't see: too far to walk with my wobbly ankle), face painting to MASH and a concert by three middle aged men (Eric Mesie, Bert Heerink and a bloke I've never heard of) who sang popular Dutch eighties songs, accompanied by the Royal Military Orchestra Johan Willem Friso (the one on my coach).

Especially for Monique: face painting

One of the reasons these days are organised is to attract people who want to have a career in the army. There is no mandatory service anymore and like all other big companies, they have problems finding enough people. Days like these are used to showcase the best they have, although the worst will also be mentioned. Another reason is to be open on what they spend money on: what is used in Afghanistan, the jungle or even in the Netherlands itself. Whatever the reason though: it's a massive event!

A hard day's work!

The first jeep makes it way on the wagons

Sometimes my job is sooo hard! This morning I had to get up real early (07.30am), so I could start at 09.00am. I got to the pick-up point a little before ten and almost immediately found out that they were running late. By about an hour or two.

Now, I've already told you we're having a wintery spell in the Netherlands. And last night the frost was severe: minus ten to twelve (Celsius). Which in turn caused the points in the tracks to freeze over. Which caused problems for the train to be put where it should be. So, by the time I arrived, they were already running over two and a half hours late, just getting the train in place. Then they had to sweep the snow off the train and de-ice it. At a quarter past ten the first vehicle finally made its way onto the train.

Just a milimeter to the left. LEFT I SAID!!

It was a slow process though. The driving on was easy enough, but the tethering of the vehicles was a completely different matter. I saw measuring tape coming out to measure the distance between the right wheel and the edge and left wheel and the edge. If the difference was 5mm, it was too much! Painstakingly slow the wagons filled up. I thought everything was on, when all of a sudden I see all these lorries arrive! They had to get on as well, but the train was already full. So, the train needed to be changed. A new lot of wagons arrived and finally (after a visit to MacDonalds) we were able to leave at 4pm!!

Now, I was supposed to do another trip as well, but that was transferred to a colleague, since I would never have been able to do it. And in the end I was home at the original time of 6.30pm.

I love my job!

Army

Last Wednesday we had to pick up a large group of college students. Those students have chosen a course to prepare them for a job in either the army/navy/air force or as a security guard. In order for them to be able to make up their minds properly they have 'field trips' to, in this instance, a large military training area in Germany. They learned how to march, they were drilled, they were shouted at, they had fun and they had to learn about the past and see what war can do to the world. They stayed for three days and were quite tired on Friday. Here some impressions I had...

Considering we were in a massive German military area, which (apart from the shooting) is usually left alone, it is not unusual to see wild animals like badgers (check), foxes (check twice), deer (check), rabbits (check) or boars. This was the only thing I saw of the boars in the area. Their footprints. The rest of the prints had disappeared under tank tracks!

On day two we had to wait for the college students to come back to the coach and while waiting we saw this beautiful sunset. The colours were just gorgeous and I managed to take a few photos. This was the best. The buildings you see are part of one of the army bases in the military training area.

The military training area where we were was established in the early thirties of last century to train up large amounts of soldiers for the coming war. Bergen-Belsen became a workers' camp for men from all over Germany. They had to build the army base and made good money. After the war started, the camp housed Dutch, Belgian and French prisoners of war. After that Russian POW's. The camp was extended and became a holding camp for political prisoners. Then 'exchange Jews' to exchange against Germans. Extended again it became a work-camp for Jews, where they would work themselves nearly to death in local businesses. The last function it held was a death camp. Jews from concentration camps near the Eastern Front (like Auschwitz in present day Poland) were trained around the country to get as far away from the front line as possible. When they arrived at the trainstation, they still had to walk about 6km (4 miles) to the camp. There they would receive little nourishment, since the aim was to starve them to death.

Anne Frank is the best known of all the people who died in Bergen-Belsen. One of the college students (16/17 years old) asked me who the other people were who had remembrance stones in the grounds of the camp. They had heard of Anne Frank, but it's only thanks to her diary, her Dutch ally Miep Gies (who helped hide them) and her father that she is now known the world over. Otherwise she would have been just as nameless as all the other people who died, but who were just as important to their families and friends. Anne and her sister Margot died in March, the camp was liberated by British forces in April.

Airforce Days

In the Netherlands all armed forces have their own respective day(s) where they show Joe Public what it is they do and what material they use for that. A few weeks ago it was the Army's turn, during the past two days it was the Airforce (the Navy's will be in July, but I doubt whether I will be there though). In stark contrast to the Army, the Airforce is a lot more visual and oratory. For one, most of their equipment is in the air and those air 'machines' can make an awful lot of noise. Deafening on occasion!

Of course not all of the flying machines shown in these photos are used in the Dutch Airforce. On every air-show you try to get foreign squadrons to do a show as well. I'm not sure which ones were flying during the past two days, but I heard colleagues talk of the French, so they were probably there. On the first photo you can see a stealth bomber. Not in use anymore, but restored and now only flying during shows. The second photo shows several helicopters and the one on the left is carrying a jeep. I wouldn't want to be in it, for fear of throwing up!

On the second photo you can also see a few buses and coaches. Because I wasn't there privately, but on a job. I had to ferry visitors back and forth between airbase and train/bus station. During my breaks I was at the 'spotters' area and was able to take a lot of photos. On day two I had the short trip: only 30 minutes back and forth. I was really lucky, because a lot of drivers got stuck in severe traffic. A trip that would normally only last 35 minutes took up to two and a half hours!! Those poor passengers! I'm not sure what the airplane in the third photo is, but I heard talk of a Dakota, so if anyone is more knowledgable than me on this subject...

One of the foreign squads doing their tricks. It was good fun to watch and we were lucky with the weather, although I wouldn't have minded it to be a bit warmer! On day two especially the clouds kept on coming in and occasionally even obscuring part of the shows!

From the spotters place where we were based during our breaks and waiting to relieve other drivers, we had a bad view of the base itself. But when I got home and put this photo on my computer, I found it was actually a US plane! Thank you camera...

In the navy...

Two days of doing nothing while still getting paid? Brilliant!!! Just please: don't give those kind of days to me too often, because they are so! incredibly! boring! Even if you do have time to go to the beach, watch a naval demonstration and see lots of nice naval men (not interested in the women).

Search and Rescue

Dutch Coastguard, mostly used for high seas and oil platform work

I hope never to get into a situation where I need to be rescued by helicopter. But if I ever find myself on a boat in the middle of the high seas or on a mountain top and have no other way of getting out, than a helicopter isn't such a bad thing. And I now know that I can trust them. Those people on board know what they are doing.

Aerial photographs were taken from this helicopter

How do I know? Well, the Search and Rescue service of the Royal Netherlands AirForce exists 50 years this year and had an agility course set up, so helicopters of different countries could show their stuff! I only missed one: the Canadians. They were supposed to go up in the air at two, but for some reason the whole thing got changed around and in the end they were up by 1.30 and had finished by 1.45! I did see the rest though and was thorougly impressed.

I'm not sure which team this was: Belgium, Slovenia, Slovakia? They had a distinct disadvantage though: their line was hanging in the middle of the helicopter and couldn't be manipulated, hence the two men watching everything and shouting orders to the pilot. They came last!

The first thing they had to do was pick up a bucket of water with a grappling hook hanging on the helicopter. They had to put the bucket down again behind a type of wall, pick it up again and fly on to the next obstacle: weaving between some sticks. Then an obstacle where they had to pass the bucket through the cut-out shape. They then had to deposit the bucket again and try and pull a small ring from the earth. As soon as that was over, the time stopped (it was also a competition). The team who had completed the course fastest ànd had the most water left in the bucket was pronounced the winner.

The grappling hook and the ring. When the ring was pulled out, orange smoke would come out, signalling the finish

In the morning the anoraks came out (plane/helicopter spotters) and in the afternoon it was the press' turn. They drew the short straw though: most of the press only got to see the Dutch who were last to compete. But it was good fun and I made plenty of photographs, albeit not with a nice camera like the spotters and/or the press.

The Canadian helicopter, the only one I missed...

Off to see the world!

After a few days off it was back to work for me yesterday. Starting at 7 in the morning, by the time I had taken those soldiers to their skiing whatyamacallit in Germany, gotten to an airport in the Netherlands again and waited and waited and waited and waited it was gone half past eight at night and still no sign of freedom! In the end I was relieved by a colleague at the end of my allowed 15 hours of work. Of which I get about 12 hours paid!
Today is an easier day. I only have to go to Germany and find a hotel there. Then tomorrow it's back to the Netherlands, but with Dutch soldiers.
On Saturday it's a soccer trip and on Sunday train relieve (no trains due to works on the track, buses instead).

When I will find the time to visit my brother and sister-in-law who just had their third baby I don't know...

Work is a riot!

I am not the world's greatest fan of people between 12 and 18. However, when I see riot police knocking them about a bit (and then some in some cases) I have to admit I like it. By now, you're probably wondering what the ??? Let me explain.

Part of my job is (occasionally) driving military personel around. From the driving range to the base or from the base to some far off field in Farawayistan. However, we also have to pick up college kids who want to join the armed forces and are now in a 'orientation' year in school. They get taught how to march, how to obey (brilliant), how to be soldiers, before they have to make their final choice. Every once and a while they have to go into the field in either army, navy or airforce and learn the soldiers' ways. Today they learned that a stick from the riot police hurts. A great deal!

This morning I had to pick up a coach load of college kids and take them to the army training grounds close by. After we had finally found it, everyone got off the coach. After about half an hour they all scattered into the woods, tied themselves to trees and generally making a big nuisance of themselves and scaring the squirrels. Not long after that the riot police showed up in full gear and started driving them from the woods. After only five minutes the first kid was taken into custody and shown to the arrest vehicle (my coach). Within about half an hour all kids were out and (of course) the riot police had won. Half an hour later, the kids moved into the woods again and a new platoon arrived to chase them out.

In the afternoon it happened for a third time. But this time there was a little catch. Since the terrain they were using is army terrain (riot police was army riot police), there were actually soldiers using the terrain for training. And when suddenly the shots got quite close, it turned out they were using the same area the riot police were using! Good thing they were using blanks... Anyway, the some of the kids loved it and really got into the swing of things, others just thought it pointless and stupid.

I loved it!

The part I didn't love though, was the part where I got back home and realised I had to clear and clean up after the lot of them. Sand, heather, twigs, leaves and other assorted junk and debris covered the floor and even some seats! It took me over an hour to get the coach presentable for tomorrow! But my day was ok!