Originally Posted by
FlyingHoustonian
Of course there are US military members in Belgium, we have bases there and in the Netherlands and all over Germany (Both US and NATO).
What does Belgium have to do with the OP? Maybe I missed it.
As for Austria, there are no NATO troops "assigned" to Austria. The only current US members, outside the Embassy are on exchange or less than 180 rotation so no short term tour credit is given. The majority were pulled by 1990.
Ciao,
FH
Yes -- that's the way I remembered it, too. The kid was obviously confusing Austria with Germany. We've had small groups of "advisors" in non-aligned countries like Austria as you noted for various reasons over the decades. We had to be careful what we called the guys and they had to be guys who knew how to be low-key. France was the same way, even though they pulled out of the military side of NATO. We had a significant number of advisor in France, and you would always see a French officer or two at SHAPE HQ.
Boston Bulldog had a great assignment. I always enjoyed going TDY to NATO and SHAPE because of the multi-national Exchange. As I recall, the common currency was the Canadian Dollar. You could buy anything that any NATO country would sell in its exchange -- what a deal!