Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: army

During the height of the flooding, the army were called out to provide additional crews to construct, maintain, and guard the flood barriers. A number of them deployed in these Tatra 6X6 trucks, which are a relatively recent addition to their inventory and which sometimes appear at car shows.

Even today, a station is maintained at Calais. The last time I had ridden the Eurostar, I had noted a large amount of graffitti on the CTRL, which seemed completely unacceptable to me. It isn't just ugly, but on a high speed line, in the post-9/11, post-Madrid world (not to mention earlier attacks specifically on the LGV system), it indicates an unacceptably low level of security. I'm nowhere close to a security fanatic, but a high speed line, like an airport, must be secure. Apparently, the French government had noticed, too, and put soldiers on the ends of the platforms, complete with bullpup rifles of some kind (probably FAMAS rifles). It's surprising how much vandalism happens completely out in the open, with little sophistication. Often vandals damage stations right under the CCTV cameras, and get onto the lines not with wire cutters or any such commando-like tools or tactics, but simply walk off the ends of the platforms or through gaps in the sound walls. Speaking of that, I've never understood the point of building a wall or a fence if you're going to put gaps in it or make it low enough to step over. It seems like a tremendous waste of money. Ultimately, vandalism is much easier to deal with than we were lead to believe back in the 1980's. It just takes a will, as evidenced by the drastic cleanup of the New York City subway system in the 1990's.

The wreath laying was the central part of this ceremony, and this was the best shot I got of it.

I haven't taken too many military photos in the Czech Republic, for the obvious reason that I assume they don't like being photographed. In this case, though, it was a public occassion to remember those lost in World War II, at one of the war memorials in Vitezne Namesti. I took many photos of this, but only found two worth uploading since in most of the shots the soldiers themselves were blocking the view, and since I had my cameraphone I didn't have a zoom lens.

And....here was the East German army insignia on one of the trucks.

Here are some of the former East German army trucks being used in the film.

Apparently, these people were filming some sort of movie about resistance to the Communist regime in East Germany, although I never found out which movie it was or anything like that.

I had never stopped to watch the changing of the guard at Prague castle before, so I figured I should take few shots. I chose this one for uploading.