Veterans Affairs committee  Do you release before they leave?

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, this is in the normal regulations, of course. This means that normally these are time-limited career soldiers. The lifetime career soldiers are no problem. They get paid all their life, and if they are retired, they normally get 72% monthly, so they're looked after. The ti

Veterans Affairs committee  I would very much like to tell you that the work with—you call them veterans—former soldiers is on three pillars. First is the benefit and personnel support. Second is health support, whether it's medical or psychological. The third, which from my perspective is a very important

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much. It was nice to talk to Canada today.

Veterans Affairs committee  We don't have an issue with that, no. Personally, I don't remember any case of lasting problems with mefloquine. I do not remember that. That does not mean that it is not a problem, but I don't know about it.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. I'm a little bit lost with the expression “sacred obligation”. What does it mean?

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. Yes, there is a common understanding, at least after Afghanistan, that we have to care about our soldiers and that we really have to support them. There's support coming from the press side also. The question is not whether we do this sacred obligation or have manda

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me say that overall I think it's nearly the strength of the Bundeswehr today—180,000—but that's a very rough number. It is not a true number. We once calculated that we had 300,000 cycles. A cycle is four months. If you go for four months, it is three times a year. If you g

Veterans Affairs committee  —but it's very, very rough.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I can. Indeed, in this area the German armed forces are taking good care of them. First of all, if you have been a temporary limited-career soldier, you can apply for a position as a civil servant in the same area you had been in before. This means that if you are an NCO,

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, it is an issue in the German armed forces. Within the Ministry of Defence we have established a special commissioner, a special branch for equal rights and for all the questions of sexual assault and of inequality. It has been led by a female colonel for a while now. Every

Veterans Affairs committee  We focus on those who are still serving, yes. The soldiers—or, let me say, the civilian citizens of Germany who were once members of the armed forces but left it—are no longer under military control and are no longer supported by the institution. Just let me say that if there's

Veterans Affairs committee  Well, it depends. The military has a special judicial system for giving penalties, up to discharge from the armed forces, so it is always handled through the military system. We don't have military courts, if you call it that. We have special punishment within the armed forces, b

Veterans Affairs committee  We used it.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.