Swiss Army Accidentally Invades Liechtenstein

[matcom]

<snip>

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) — What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers from the neutral country wandered more than a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story, but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press on Friday.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior Ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington, D.C., does not have an army.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-03-02-swiss-troops_x.htm

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. lol.

ohh swiss army..why did you do it?

:rofl:

[bridgit]

2. whoopsy...

[havocmom]

3. Cut them some slack.... it was Happy Hour

:toast:

[underpants]

4. Ture story - I once invaded Czechoslovakia

I had a S.Sgt who could read a map to save his life. He once got lost on computer training simulator so badly that he found a part of the program that the computer geeks didn't know existed.

We were doing mock manuevers in humvees on the German farm fields. We actually would turn and go back to the main road so he could (E6 paygrade) get out of the hummer and look at the name of the small town on the sign then look down at the map then look back up. This went on for hours. Finally he decided to do something different and he told me to go here and there and so forth. I was driving because our driver (Bradley) didn't actually have a driver's license. Finally I had had enough and I grabbed the map from him. The big antenna that we passed an hour ago was on the Czech border. WE WERE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA!!!

We were unarmed and this was after the Velvet Revolution and the wall coming down but we still weren't supposed to be there.

[matcom]

5. holy shit!

good thing you weren't in sight of one of those guard towers. they would have pumped you FULL of holes!

[underpants]

6. This was way out in the middle of nowhere

well at least any guard towers that were there had been gone for a year or so.

:shrug:

I loved the Senior Scout calling in to ask if the tree blowing in the wind was moving on my Sgt's map

E6

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Oh come on - it's Czechoslavaki. It's like going into Wisconsin.

[underpants]

11. Ha!

That is what I was telling some friends about the cold war.

Remember how we were told that the Soviets were all 10 foot baby eating monsters and how they wanted ALL OF THEM wanted to crush us in the name of Lenin and Marx and Communism...well the wall came down and we found out that it was....well it was Wisconsin-a bunch of sausage eating sports watchers boozehounds* you couldn't give less of a rip about who runs what so long as the (insert sport of choice) game is on.


*- I fully embrace membership into this group description myself.

[bridgit]

13. heh-heh, that is funny...

:)

[Call Me Wesley]

7. We were at the brick of WWIII!!!!!1111!!!!!!

:rofl:

Same goes for the few Swiss Army people who missed a train stop and ended up in Italy. They were escorted back by the police.

[underpants]

8. Imagine what would have happened if they went to Defcon screwdriver

:scared:

[Call Me Wesley]

9. LOL!

:thumbsup:

[ZombieNixon]

14. They're just going to have to revoke your neutrality now.

:P

[redwitch]

12. I just pictured the scene from "The Mouse that Roared"

Where they invade New York during an air raid drill.

[charlie and algernon]

15. how dare they pick on a country who doesn't even have an army!

bullies they are!

:rofl:

[matcom]

16. kick

for the afternoon crowd

[Fenris]

17. Finally those Liechtensteiners will get what they deserve!

[matcom]

18. THEY HAD CMD'S!!!

Clocks Of Mass Destruction

[LynneSin]

23. They should! Hell, more people live in my town of Wilmington DE....

than the entire country of Liechtenstein

You can look it up

Wilmington DE: 72,786
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington,_Delaware

Liechtenstein: 33,987
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein

[conscious evolution]

19. Did the Liechtenstien ians(?) fight them off with this?

http://images-partners.google.com/images?q=tbn:mfDGDO64IEmSDM:

[baldguy]

20. This is how all international relations should be.

[cemaphonic]

21. So does this give Austria a casus belli?

They could finally reannex Switzerland for violating the territorial integrety of a friendly and unarmed neighbor.

Apparently Liechtenstein is the last surviving remnant of the Holy Roman Empire. It drifted loose when Napolean dissolved the HRE, and didn't get caught up in the later German unification, because Austria and Switzerland were in the way.

[LynneSin]

22. I heard the Swiss Army carried Weapons of Mass Destruction