Pretty cool doco on the Dutch Commandos in Afghanistan.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=owGYF86AkNY

6 parts in total.

Yeah them dutch commandos JAEGERBLAHSMHSHSH or whatever they are called i can never spell it , are pretty bad arse.

Damn, that American guy was completely bad arse.

 

Pity the politics surrounding the whole operation and the "war on terror" in general, effectively tie the militarys hands behind their backs.

Once upon a time my father was part of the Dutch commandos before he joined the water engineers...

Whats a water engineer ?

Terra forming?

I would say they may be like clearance divers, frogmen, or seals but I'm just guessing.

 

Of course he could mean he became a plumber.

The water engineers are just like other armed services engineers except they specialise in water related activities. As you may already know, a lot of the Netherlands is underwater. Large areas of land are 'reclaimed' and held back by layers of dykes. These dykes can be opened in order to drown any attacking army (as was the case in WWII I believe). The water engineers oversee this as well as other things. On of the tasks my father used to do was blowing up ice which had formed at the base of bridges. They also used to construct temporary bridges up to several km long.

 

He served during the cold war period when they had national service for most young men. After his basic training he was selected to go on and do commando training(as he was damn fit unlike now). They did crazy **** like jumping out of moving vehicles with a full load, cutting holes in the ice and going for paddles and atomic weapon defense drills. Instead of continuing on with the commandos, he requested to join the water engineers, like his father, and was given special treatment by allowing him to join. This made him the one and only national servicemen in the water engineers, as they are made up solely of professional soldiers.

Jumping out of moving vehicles is how the "Originals" of the SAS practiced parachute landing before they got the actual chutes. The would jump out the back facing the opposite direction of the way the truck was travelling at 30mph which is about 50kmh. One guy thought he would be smart and try and run it out and the interview I read is that you could hear his head hit the desert like a shot had gone off.

Ouch. I think they had a tower that they jumped off when my dad did his training.

Yeah things have gotten a little safer especially in our more peaceful times, considering the SAS were formed towards the end of WW2 or after depending on how you view it.