They drink too much and they're too fat to fight, that's the damning conclusion of German parliamentary reports into the country's 3,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan.
While British and U.S. troops in the country face a strict ban on alcohol, their German comrades are allowed two pints a day.
The stunning statistics reveal that in 2007 German forces in northern Afghanistan drank 1.7million pints of beer and 90,000 bottles of wine.
The troops also downed 896,000 pints of beer in the first six months of this year, the Times reported.
The parliamentary report claimed that some 40 per cent of all German army personnel are overweight - a higher percentage than in the civilian population.
At the time Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, stated: 'Plainly put, the soldiers are too fat, exercise too little, and take little care of their diet.'
The Times also reported the damning allegation from a senior officer that Germany is failing in its main mission to train the Afghan police. He descibed the efforts as 'a miserable failure'.
Is it me, or do the Brits seem more irked that the Germans are pounding beers while their boys aren't, rather than that the Germans won't leave the FOB to be useful while their boys dodge bullets?
By: Brant
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