Reuters: Some 300 U.S. Marines landed in Norway on Monday for a six-month deployment, the first time since World War Two that foreign troops have been allowed to be stationed there, in a deployment which has irked Norway’s Arctic neighbor Russia.
Officials played down any link between the operation and NATO concerns over Russia, but the deployment coincides with the U.S. sending several thousand troops to Poland to beef up its Eastern European allies worried about Moscow’s assertiveness.
Soldiers from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina landed a little after 10 am CET at a snow-covered Vaernes airport near Trondheim, Norway’s third-largest city, where temperatures were reaching -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit).
U.S. troops are to stay in Norway for a year, with the current batch of Marines being replaced after their six-month tour is complete.
A spokesman for the Norwegian Home Guards, who will host the Marines at the Vaernes military base, about 1,500 km (900 miles) from the Russian border, said the U.S. troops will learn about winter warfare.
It’s not all about you, Vlad. We’re there to fight ISIS their Scandinavian stronghold.
Gotta stop the white walkers ( from game o thrones, right?)
Hope they develop a taste for Lutefiske.
When I was in the Army we learned winter warfare tactics in Alaska where the temperature fell to -38 degrees. Closer and cheaper!
Chill out Vlad those 300 Marines are just a small part of their advance publicity units armed with nothing more than pens, cameras, fax machines and copious PX privileges.
Russian Army is about 3/4 million active and 2 million reserve. And the 300 Marines are supposed to do what (other than try and make president limp-dick look tough)?
I don’t know what I’ve been told
Norwegian p—y’s mighty cold
Grab ’em by the Norwegian p—y!
And Poland finally got a contingent of US troops after asking for how many decades?
It’s amazing how unnerving 300 jarheads can be! The USMC:When you care to send the very best!
What are they going to learn how to ice skate to the beach?
What shitty duty. Freeze your ass off in Norway.
I wouldn’t wanna be there. That is
foookin COLD.
I find it hilarious that Putin is so scared of 300 Marines that he has threatened to target Norway with a nuke. The Norwegian girls will have to be locked up safely with their mothers.
Semper Fi.