Switzerland Will Have a National Army
Rican
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Introducing...
...the awe inspiring Top Secret Drum Corps.
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Dateline : Wednesday November 10 (Day 1086)
Location: Federal Palace, Bern, Switzerland
Reporter: Colonel George Armstrong "Old Man" Custer
This will be so "tl;dr" that I'll do well to cover most of the bullet points in this edition of your Swiss Armed Forces News. Further editions of this paper will follow, please open your ears and open your minds and try to keep up.
First, for those who may not know me, let me introduce myself. I am George Armstrong Custer, an eRep player since Day 492, having spent nearly all of my game in the military. I started out in the US Army, earning my way through the ranks from buck Private to 2Lt as head of Army Intelligence, then Major as the first Quartermaster General of the Army, and eventually to Major General, third in rank behind the Commanding General and the Executive Officer of the Army. After eleven months in the USArmy I took a vacation, a month with the Elite Australian Drop Bears. Then returning to the US, I served with the National Guard while as President of the American Military Party, and was elected to three consecutive terms in Congress. I then transferred to the US Cavalry where I currently serve as Senior Officer of Public Relations.
Last month I was here in Switzerland to cover Party President of the Swiss Liberal Party when your President Jimakos-Thess was impeached and left the country, I left after the Party President election October 15 but have kept a finger on the pulse of Swiss politics.
I have been asked by your newly elected President, Paul Proteus, to help develop a National Army for Switzerland. I proudly accepted this challenge, then learned just what I was up against.
I am beginning to get a full understanding of how Switzerland is so very politically divided, to such an extreme that there are two complete sets of Organizations, Banks and Forums, which are activated and mothballed as one side or the other gains power.
I fully understand that the faction who was in power up to last week does not want a National Army, the primary reasons being that it would be small and ineffective and that it might attract military aggression.
I respectfully disagree.
A National Army of 20 to 30 Soldiers
Actually, it is absolutely true that a Swiss Army would, indeed, be ineffective. This country has, I'm told, maybe 50 active players-- the rest are inactive, dead, or multis. I honestly expect to build an Army of twenty, maybe thirty, tops. This will not be a threat to anyone. This Army will not be able to defend Switzerland from foreign aggression. Those are very nice goals for armies of large countries with active populations-- to be a serious threat, to kick such ass that enemies think twice about invasion. Not here. Not happenin'.
More on this later, I promise.
However, a National Army would serve other purposes.
Let's have a few of those bullet points, here..
● Citizen Recruitment
● Player Retention
● National Morale
● Economic Stimulus
● International Respect
As I said at the opening of this piece, there is just so much to cover I'm not even going to try to do it all in a single article. My intention today is simply to bring this to you, the Swiss People, that you are going to have a National Army.
It will be a Swiss National Army, absolutely non-political. There will be no politics discussed in the forums or IRC channels, this Army will follow the orders of the President of Switzerland no matter who that is or what Party he represents. This Swiss National Army will not be disbanded and resurrected like the country's Bank and Forum and other operating systems with every shift of political power. This is the Swiss National Army, of and for the People of Switzerland-- all of them no matter their political views.
Digest that, my friends.
One Swiss National Army, of and for the People of Switzerland-- all of the People of Switzerland.
I will be serving as your Commander, with the military rank of Colonel. My Co-Commander is Colonel Rowan Quigley, who will introduce himself in a subsequent article in this series.
We are developing a Google Form which we hope to have ready for tomorrow's edition of this Swiss Armed Forces News, which will ask general questions about your interest and availability to participate in your National Army-- this will not be a formal Application Form, but a tool to help us better understand your wants and needs as citizens and potential soldiers.
While I've been writing this piece Col Quigley has published an edition of this newspaper.
[SAF Orders] - Day 1086 [Lower Saxony and Bremen, Germany] is more typical of what you will see in this Swiss Armed Forces News, a daily Department of Defence Orders Relay for Swiss civilian fighters.
When the Army is formed, its fight orders will be separate and private, classified and secure.
George Armstrong Custer
Colonel, Swiss National Army -|- Editor, the Swiss Armed Forces News
Captain, US Cavalry -|- Editor, the Cavalry Saber
Crabby, Opinionated Bastard -|- Editor, Custer's Stand
:::
... and has been re-published here for your nostalgia/amusement.
:::
Comments
Thank you General Custer....
we love you!
Don't remember this guy, but I do remember Swiss Armed Forces, also Milites Helvetica and Berengar, so good times...
i miss berengar a LOT
I miss the whole crew... Penguin, F4ucon, Srog Norstag, Luka Tomasevic, Vincent Rekgdal, Matsch Moon, Sprne, Sgtchewy.............. :') Golden age!
srog was my best bud ever
but do you miss clifford burns?
Check Paul Proteus's friend list (first 3-4 pages) so many dead citizens...
Clifford Burns, the best troller in the eWorld. DoDrew, Javier and company are little babies for him 😃
Ilestis...Renouille...Eleriel...F4uc0n...Wazamaza...Even Icewood xD (Pengu too of course haha)
Our community was honestly the best this game ever produced. Two years of golden age eSwitzerland somehow makes all of the rest of wasted time playing eRepublik worth it.
here's a classic pic of Clifford Burns, probably the one that pissed him off the most.
http://tinyurl.com/CliffordBurns
and it was such fun pissing him off!
I dont remember about this, i still inactive that time.,
This was actually shocking to read.
Thank you so much for publishing it Rican.
tangentially related and horrifying image from my newspaper when I was President that month
http://i56.tinypic.com/noujdg.jpg
who was the guy in the helmet and the weird glasses?
Pretty sure that's meant to be F4uc0n
Salute o7
o7
the Clifford Burns controlled Swiss Congress ultimately failed to act, to neither approve or disapprove the formation of a Swiss national army. without there being Constitutional legitimacy making this new entity part of the national identity itself, not to be disbanded with each successive opposition Presidency then re-enacted with a pro-Switzerland leadership (as was happening with the national Bank and Forums), the project was abandoned and the Guard was dissolved.
I am not certain when the Swiss Guard was reactivated, or who was responsible. While this article is an interesting bit of history, the formation of your current Swiss national army-- the one that stuck and continues to represent the Free Swiss on battlefields worldwide-- is the history I would be interested in seeing shared.
Today's Swiss soldiers should know their roots, from the original seed as this to the solid reformation, and the leaders who have made today's Swiss Guard and Switzerland herself so great.
To be fair, the constitution was a joke regardless. We got one passed years later, it didn't help.
I thought the army we formed was a tremendous success for the very reasons in the article, Switzerland was never going to be a player at that time, iirc our entire foreign policy was one MPP with Poland that month.
Activity was defo boosted, it was a great month.
I think I will leave it to Paul to write that history. He is a better writer than I.
the disbanding was my own fault for insisting on Congressional approval in a time of basically enemy occupancy, at least in Congress.
in retrospect, I see that this would have been better handled by Presidential decree, then maintained as a national entity through successive Presidencies and Congresses regardless of who was in power or what they wanted. there was no government funding requested, therefore no absolute requirement of government approval for its existence.
I didn't want the new Swiss Guard to be "just another Military Unit" posing as a national army. I felt we needed Congressional approval. I was wrong.