Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
There are two elite units in the Danish military.
Jægerkorpset (Huntsmen Corps/The Jaeger Corps) and Frømandskorpset (Frogmen Corps).
This programme is about Jægerkorpset.
TV2 have as the first TV station followed Jægerkorpset on a secret operation in Afghanistan and at
training & exercise in Denmark.
Airforce Base Aalborg, tuesday June 2nd 2009.
The Jaegers pack their gear.
"Can't you take all three pumpguns, and throw them into one of the red boxes outside?".
An important message is possibly on it's way from Copenhagen.
A historic meeting is taking place in the Foreign Policy Committee.
Behind hermetically sealed doors, the politicians are deciding wether to activate Denmarks most
dangerous weapon; Jægerkorpset.
The Defence Secretary is sparse with details.
"I can confirm that I have orientated about what's happening in Afghanistan up to the election
the 20th of August."
"But not about The Jaegers?"
"I can confirm that I have talked about the situation in Afghanistan."
Following midday, the message is recieved by The Jaegers, for the second time The Jaeger Corps
is going to war for Denmark.
"Three pumpguns."
The mission is dangerous, the soldiers know that they risk paying the highest price.
"We are being deployed in an area where ISAF soldiers certainly aren't welcome."
"Especially not the forces who wish to subdue the Afghan population with weapons."
"That risk is up to you to handle."
"And you must constantly make sure that you balance risk with possible gain."
With the work you have, you risk not coming home on a plane seat, but in a coffin, lying down in a
bagage area.
"It is certainly an unpleasent thought, especially when one is so young and think that it might end there.
But I have chosen this line of work and I have chosen to be a Jaeger and that has after many years
become a huge part of my personality and my life, that is sadly the flipside of the coin you have to abide
by if you want to be a soldier in Denmark."
"And when you go away you have to say goodbye, and in some ways it has to be a goodbye which
could be forever. But ehm, I try not to think about more than necessary, because I will do everything
for it not to happen, and she (girlfriend/wife) knows that."
"DS00367."
Weapons and equipment are being packed for the fight against Taleban.
The Jaegers prepare with a notice for every detail, the snipers rifle for example gets some spray paint
so it is camoufalged in the colours of the green zone.
"We have to expect the desert and then the green zone, therefore the green paint is applied."
Only a few outside The Corps know that all of The Corps operational Jaegers, the so called 'shooters',
and others from the government, a few hours later in secrecy fly towards the Helmand province
in Afghanistan.
How have you prepared your family to you going away?
"Well I have prepared them numerous times before, and it's getting to be so simple, in effect
I just tell them; I have to go travel and they know that means something other than exercise.
I always come home again and that gives them a bit of calm."
The Jaegers are to support the Danish fighting force, and have to try to stop those Taleban who plant
those IEDs which almost daily kill soldiers from NATO.
And several months of intelligence work have given the Danes a picture of how the Taleban is
organized in the Danish area, the mission is to get to one or more of the leaders of Taleban.
The point of no return has been reached, for the second time in The Corps history the Jaegers, as an
entire corps, are on their way to war. Ahead waits the Afghan desert, the deadly green zone, and an
enemy for whom it is a religious duty to fight the infidels and for whom death is a reward which sends
them directly to heaven.
We have recieved unlimited access to follow The Jaegers in Denmark and abroad, for this to be
possible we have agreed to conceal The Jaegers indentity and information about tactical, technical
and intelligence details and external cooperatives.
The Crops have always sought to keep out of the public view, this principle was however broken
in 1993, in the documentary 'Eliten' about The Corps aspirant course (admission course).
"That was somewhat slower than the other way."
"There is a lot of swamp out there."
"Do you want to quit?"
"No."
"You are only halfway done."
"Yes, but I won't."
"Alright, heads & tails again then."
For many of The Jaegers now adays this started the thought process about Jægerkorpset being the
answer to their dreams and ambitions.
"When one sat and saw 'Eliten' one had sweaty hands and really did not want to watch, was on the
way out of the living room but would like to just see the next part, because one couldn't really accept that
one wasn't a part of this. It was a sort of strange seeking toward trying exactly the same or something
just as tough on ones own body"
Lars is 32 and father of two small children, patrol leader and has been a Jaeger since 2000.
"You draw ahead to the containers."
He is one of the three Jaegers who we follow in this program and as a part of the agreement, they
appear partially blurred and with other names.
"Think about that you have to be able to stop your own bodyweight before you land on the fingers of
person below you."
Peter is 27 he joined The Corps in 2003 and today he as well is a patrol leader.
"As 8, 9 or 10 years old I was certain that I wanted to be a soldier, as an 11-year-old I remember
being certain I was going to be a Jaeger."
"We take the ruins."
"When I looked at a man I wanted to be, he wasn't working in a officer or a store, he was a soldier
and of course one of the best you can be, that was how I viewed my ideal back then and that was
what I went for."
That means back then you also prepared physically, did you prepare by practising a lot of sports or?
"Eh yeah, that is.."
"You laugh?"
"Yeah precisely, I can't remember precisely as an 11-year-old, but at 13-year-old I was out with 50 kilo
rucksacks (110 lb) and walked 50 kilometer marches and I bought military gear from surplus sales to
train and go that way, it was unknowingly a blind shot, but it all pointed towards what I thought it was,
and some of it hit bullseye."
Henrik is 28 and second-in-command in Peters patrol.
been exactly that programme which has triggered my interest or wether the interest has always been
knew about it, but I have seen the good and classic 'Eliten' and other stuff, but that (Eliten) has certainly
been a factor in planting an aspiring interest which has been there from that day on. As to wether it has
there, I cannot say."
When I saw Eliten back then, I thought; holy *** man that stuff, never in my life shall I try that. But you
have thought the exact opposite, what gets a boy in elementary school thinking; that looks interesting?
"Well I think, back then, I didn't really think specifically about wether it was the challenge or what it was,
it caught my attention. Some of what has followed me, which I have held on to in my time until I started
in The Corps, was the thing about being able to do something special, something unique, and put out
something very special."
The Jaegers arrive a June night in the Danish-British main base Camp Bastion in the middle of the
Helmand desert.
The weapons are unpacked and are readied for battle.
"It has puzzled me in many years that we have had Danish soldiers in their most dangerous and
demanding mission ever and that the Jaegers haven't been deployed."