On saturday, First Lieutenant Bjark Olsen Kirkmand was killed by an IED in Iraq, and the two others in his recon vehicle were seriously injured. May he rest in peace.
The attack took place around Basra, where the Danish battalion is stationed (in the British sector), and is particularly distrubing because the area has been extremely stable, with very little violence. In face, the Danish casulaties have been extremely low so far - with virtually no fatalities to date.
Fortunately, the Danish government had just recently decided to reinforce the Danish battalion by sending a Fennec helicopter platoon (with support personnel) to add to the battalion. Support for the mission i Iraq is still pretty strong in Denmark, and there are no plans to reduce our troop presence there. Yay team!
Disclaimer - I completely realize that the Danish military presence in Iraq is trivial compared to the U.S. (and even British) presences, but given our extremely small military and our commitments in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the 500 troops we've got in Iraq is actually a
very substantial part of our standing army (because we only send professionals to iraq, not draftees - and a large portion of our army is still draftees). So this post is in no way meant to be dismissive towards the tragic American losses this weekend