Just now in Holland...

[brooklynite]

Was standing on a train platform and a freight train passed carrying armored personnel carriers, Red Cross trucks, tanks and military equipment.

Heading East…..

[MarineCombatEngineer]

1. Wow!!!!

Thanks for the info, seems Putin stirred a hornets nest with his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

[FakeNoose]

2. I hope they're going to Ukraine

[okaawhatever]

3. Awesome. Thanks for info! nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Has train service been restored? NT

[WhiteTara]

5. Did that give you shivers?

I think I would have been filled with many emotions.

[Beastly Boy]

6. Netherland's military aid to Ukraine does not include tanks or APCs

So this equipment is either headed to Poland or it is coming from France, or both. Either way, it is likely related to NATO logistics of some urgency. It is very unusual to see military equipment moving through the Netherlands in broad daylight.

[brooklynite]

17. Not saying they're Dutch origin; just passing through

German (DB) engine running the train.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Train

[True Blue American]

10. Smile

[True Blue American]

8. I just ordered Canna bulbs

From Holland. LOL

[samnsara]

19. gawd, the shipping!

[True Blue American]

21. No charge, I ordered from a local company

But they are coming from Holland.,)

[SpamWyzer]

9. Nederland

stuurt benodigheden naar Ukraine zodat ze kunnen meer dodelijk verdediging tegen de Russen. Oorlog is afschuwelijk.

[DFW]

13. Putin is afschuwelijk

Det hele invasie was niet nodig. Dit is nog steeds niet nodig. Iedereen wordt geholpen, inklusiv de Russen, zoude hij gewoon zeggen, “sorry,dit was een vergissing!! Wij gaan naar t’huis!”

[True Blue American]

22. I can read about half of that.

[wnylib]

24. That's better than I managed. I got about

1/4 to 1/3 of it. I don't know Dutch, but have a limited knowledge of German. The similarities between Dutch, English, and German only got a fraction of it through to me.

But, Google is a friend.

[aggiesal]

31. Using Google Translate

#9:
The Netherlands
sends supplies to Ukraine so they can build more deadly defenses against the Russians. War is horrible.

#11:
Putin is horrible
The whole invasion was unnecessary. This is still not necessary. Everyone is helped, including the Russians, he would just say, “Sorry, this was a mistake!! We're going home!"

[wnylib]

34. Thanks. I looked it up, too.

[True Blue American]

40. My Grandparents were from Germany

My Grandmother could not write English. I am sure I picked a lot of it from her, even though I was 2 when she died. I never heard my Grandfather speak in German, he had a farm and built houses.

[wnylib]

42. My grandparents were from Germany, too.

My grandmother was 3 years old when her parents brought her and her siblings to the US. She died before I was born, but her sister, my Great Aunt Emma, lived with us when I was a child. Emma was 6 when her family came here so German was her first language and was what her family spoke at home. She could speak, read, and write in German and English, but spoke only English in our house, except when old friends visited her and they spoke German together. So I got accustomed to the sound even though I picked up only a few words.

The other times that she spoke German were when she got excited and slipped into it automatically. I gave her a few occasions for that.

One day I found a book in our attic that she had used as a child for learning English, and tried to learn German from it. She took it away from me and said, "You're American. You should speak only English." She had lived through both world wars as a German American citizen and the stigma stayed with her.

So, in high school I took German classes. But that was long ago and my high school language classes did not get into much depth. In college, my major was Spanish. I only remember a little German now.

[irisblue]

28. I used the translation option on my phone. 🤳

[homegirl]

46. After almost half

a century away from Sweden I got 90%. Kind of pleased as I learned Swedish as an adult.

[DFW]

47. I'm in Holland once every ten days or so. Utrecht is just a 2 hour drive from here.

I speak to my office there usually once a day. I’d have to be some kind of idiot if I hadn’t learned their language by now.

So, I figured one good post in Dutch deserves another.

[Ptah]

11. Well, they couldn't head West now could they.

[DFW]

14. Test for water resistance? n/t

[brooklynite]

18. There was about an hour of distance between. Us and the cost at that point.

[ananda]

12. Good news!

Thank you!

[Mr. Ected]

15. Amsterdam?

My kids live in The Hague.

[brooklynite]

16. Appeldorn.

[RocRizzo55]

39. That's about an hour from me

I am in Wageningen

[Mr. Ected]

41. Hope you're enjoying your stay!

I love it over there.

[samnsara]

20. when i was driving around Europe 100 years ago we were behind a line of NATO

...vehicles. Quite exciting!

[Martin68]

23. Europe is at war for the first time since WWII. Russia broke the rules that kept the peace in

Europe. Europe remembers WWII, and that is why they are doing what they can to prevent Russia from gaining a foothold from which it can start absorbing other neighbors like Poland, Hungary, and Romania.

[wnylib]

25. And it's why we are also giving assistance.

Just as WWII was a fight to preserve civilization and democracy, so is the support for Ukraine.

Considering what Russia has been doing to the US through propaganda and assets and agents embedded in the US government, Americans have a lot at stake in the fight.

[Martin68]

26. The whole world does. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an existential threat. So much better to fight

Russia in Ukraine than after Russia has annexed Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and has had time to build its military back up.

[wnylib]

35. +1000

[RKP5637]

38. Absolutely!!!!!!! n/t

[DFW]

49. We absorbed about a quarter million refugees from the Balkan War of the 1990s.

The conflict that ensued from the break-up of Yugoslavia was certainly considered a war here in Europe. Just one small country (Austria) stood between us and the killing—sort of like now, except that now the buffer country, Poland, is bigger. Considering that the aggressor this time is Putin and not Milošević, the distance is of minor comfort at best.

[Martin68]

52. True! But isn't it usually considered a civil war rather than a war of invasion or conquest?

[DFW]

54. Once the country of Yugoslavia has been declared a non-entity

Both Serbia and Croatia were accusing each other of having invaded Bosnia, and when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, the Serbs were considered invaders by the Kosovars as well.

Whether a civil war or not was really semantic, anyway. It was a brutal armed conflict with huge casualties, destruction of cities, and enormous displacement of civilian population. "Ethnic cleansing" became a household word during this conflict, as both Serbs and Croats sought to eradicate each other's populations in both Bosnia and their own territories. We absorbed a few hundred thousand here, and many stayed on. One gets a real idea how close this all was when one visits the area. My wife and I visited Dubrovnik about 6 years ago. Bombing damage from Serbian artillery wasn't completely repaired, and one could still see the hills in Serbia across the bay, from which they were shooting their artillery into Dubrovnik, a historical site since for about six and a half centuries.

[Martin68]

57. Thank you for sharing your experience. The war was rather abstract for those of us who didn't

understand the complexity of the history and relationships in the various regions of Yugoslavia. I do remember it being said that only Tito could hold the different groups in balance and prevent a civil war. It didn't take long for his death to lead to total anarchy.

[DFW]

59. Tito was not only a military strategist, but also a political genius.

A Croat, he took the Serbian side against the Nazis, broke with Stalin in 1948, when it was clear that membership in the Warsaw Pact meant becoming a de facto Russian colony, and managed to hold together a very diverse group of Balkan peoples crammed into a geographical small space. A German friend told me that Tito's Yugoslavia was a de facto part of NATO, since in the event of an armed conflict, his sources in Yugoslavia assured him that Tito would side with NATO, and not the Soviet Union.

The first time, I visited Yugoslavia, I was first in Crna Gora (Montenegro), and then in Zagreb, Croatia. I knew some Russian, but was not familiar with Serbian or Croatian. They are so close that many just call their languages Serbo-Croatian. In 1973, I had heard that Marsjal Tito Square in Zagreb was where the young people would hang out in the evening, so I walked over there. Sure enough, it might as well have been the Boston Common of Zagreb. I talked with all kinds of people my age (21 at the time), many of whom knew English. One guy with hair down to his waist joked that he was considered more of an outsider than I was. I asked how come? He laughed and said, "I'm a Serb." Two sisters invited me up to their apartment for coffee. One had a boyfriend there, who only spoke Hrvatski (Croatian). He was curious about what I thought about music, and professed his love for the recently (3 years) departed Jimi Hendrix. Translating through the two sisters, I said Hendrix was a legend, but I was a big fan of the tamburitsa music and kolo dances of Croatia, too. I played in a group back in college in Philadelphia that played all sorts of folk music from Croatia and Serbia. He thought we must be stark raving loony to be interested in their folk music. What he said was close enough to Russian that I could unerstand it, so I answered in English, "yeah, and all YOU do is listen to OUR music." Both sisters, who understood English, started laughing. I asked what was so funny. They said we didn't speak each other's language, but understood each other just fine.

These were friendly, sophisticated, aware, inteligent young people. If you were to tell me they would be shooting each other down in the streets 20 years later, I would have said you were out of your mind. For people that had really impressed me at age 21, they really managed to acquire some awful leaders later on. Serbia's Milošević wanted to be Putin before there was Putin, and Croatia's Tudjman was like Hungary's Orbán before Orbán was Orbán. But, of course, people here in Europe also ask me how the USA, after such a great 8 years of Obama/Biden getting the USA back on track after the Cheney/Bush disaster, could possibly allow such a dangerous buffoon as Trump t5o even be a candidate, let alone take the office of the presidency when we had such an obviously great choice in Hillary Clinton? How, indeed? Yure, we're not yet bombing each other's party headquarters, but with nut cases like Tommy Tubervill and Josh Hawley in the Senate, along with Gaetz, Boebert amd Taylor Greene pulling McCarthey's strings in the House, don't tell me we could never degenerate zo such a level.

[Martin68]

60. The election of Donald Trump means we have to always be aware and on guard against

America's crazies. when I was growing up I was told "it can't happen here." We now know for certain that it can happen here and that it will if we don't stay vigilant and involved.

[DFW]

61. Vigilant and involved. I couldn't agree more. We need a benevolent presidency, not a malevolent one.

Lack of vigilance will bring us another round of the latter.

[AllaN01Bear]

27. when i was a kid , during the viet nam war , there was a lot of troop and

material convoys on the open road.

[BumRushDaShow]

33. My high school was up the hill from a NG armory

that was still being used back then but I think they finally closed it and moved it elsewhere (quick search shows that LaSalle U bought the property since their campus is nearby). Would occasionally see truck convoys from there.

[Warpy]

29. Good, they're going to need it all

if they're going to push Russia out of most of their territory. Crimea is going to be a tougher nut to crack, my guess is that they'll blow up trains crossing the Kerch Bridge, they've already blocked the canal that delivered fresh water to Crimea. Russia will have to truck water in, there's none on the peninsula.

The rail bridge will be down until at least June but the roadway has been repaired. Right now, everything is coming in by ferry.

Russian fortifications on Crimea are a little on the hilarious side, they're recreating Hitler's defenses in NOrmandy. It's funny because the only country with amphibious assault capability like that is the US and we're not fighting this war. My best guess says that Ukraine will spend the next year making it too expensive for Russia to try to keep Crimea. They're assisted by the Tatar population, evicted by Russia and allowed to return by Ukraine.

So far, Russia has succeeded in messng up the tourist beaches with their trenches and pillboxes.

[aggiesal]

30. Loose lips, sink ships ...

Just having fun with you.

[republianmushroom]

36. like it

[Raine]

43. I wish "certain" people (reTHUGS) would quit whining 🤐 about Europe doing

nothing. Europe is doing plenty but they're doing lots of it behind the scenes.

[niyad]

44. Slava Ukraini! Thank you.

[James48]

45. Loose lips sink ships.

Posting a location of military vehicle movement is a sure way to get it attacked. Stop doing that. OPERATIONAL SECURITY -

[former9thward]

48. Russia is not going to attack a train in Netherlands.

And if it is interested in military equipment moving around it has satellites with far superior skills than anecdotal internet posters. We have moved beyond WW II security a long time ago.

[BradBo]

50. So what.

Just a training exercise.

[The Jungle 1]

51. There is a major war going on and what you are doing is a bad IDEA.

WWII, War Advertising Council: Loose lips sink ships!

[former9thward]

53. Do you really believe that?

You believe Russia has to rely on anecdotal internet posters to know what is happening?

[The Jungle 1]

55. The russian military uses cell phones to communicate in the field!

We know russia monitors and interferes with our internet.
I never said or implied they "rely on anecdotal internet posters." I am saying posting troop and equipment movements in Europe is dangerous. I would bet if you spoke to a US intelligence officer they would tell you the same thing.
I wonder why high level American officials travel in secret? If anecdotal internet postings don't matter why the secret.

Please visit this US military site and review you position.

https://www.military.com/deployment/maintaining-operational-security-with-social-media.html
It's as easy as a click of a mouse or a tap on a smartphone, and in a few seconds sensitive Army information might be shared that could get Soldiers killed.

With the ease of social media, in any part of the globe at any time, a Soldier, Army civilian, or family member can post pictures from a deployment or talk about an Army mission.

But these seemingly innocent posts could actually contain sensitive information that endangers Soldiers by revealing locations, security measures, mission operations, or troop movements, said the Army's social media experts.

[former9thward]

56. The Russians have spy satellites and can see any movement of troops and war materiel.

In addition there are hundreds of thousands of Russians in all the European countries and if Putin wants to rely on ground reports he has plenty of people. He does not need to rely on internet stories (which given the accuracy of the internet could be completely false).

[The Jungle 1]

58. The United States Military does not want you to put this stuff on social media!

They are quite clear about it on the site I provided.

But you go on ahead and put service men at risk.
Me I am sure the United States Military knows more about this stuff than I do.