Five Stories from Europe You May Have Missed

[DFW]

3. My wife and I liked the mortar shell story

While the Swiss army still does conduct military exercises in the event of a future invasion, they don’t take the threat very seriously these days. They are also quite meticulous with their weapons. The guy from my Geneva office had to take part in exercises until he was almost 50.

Switzerland/Germany is still a customs border, though no longer a Schengen border. You MIGHT make it across undetected with an artillery shell, but it’s risky.

And then this guy would have everyone believe he hiked in Switzerland, went to Germany, and then without once unpacking his backpack, tried to bring it through security at the Munich airport, which is not near anything. That airport is so far away from anything, if you go to fly from there, you make preparations. He obviously didn’t fly there to change planes, because he would have been caught at the first airport of departure.

I also wonder why we didn’t see this on the TV news or read about it in the Düsseldorf paper? I’ll have to go back and see if we missed it. Shutting down a major airport here due to a mortar shell in a passenger’s backpack is normally worthy of national news here.