Forgotten Dutch Soldier Stands Lengthy Watch

A Dutch soldier left behind by his unit during NATO maneuvers guarded a bridge in the West German countryside for five days, a newspaper said Wednesday.

Sympathetic local villagers brought food and drink to Dutch soldier Johann Romers, 19, who last week refused to leave his post at the Leine River in northern West Germany, the Stars and Stripes newspaper said.

The guard became especially noticeable to West German police after other Dutch soldiers had left the area, said the U.S. military’s authorized unofficial publication.

“That’s what I call obedience,” the Darmstadt-based newspaper quoted police officer Siegfried Meyer as saying. “I thought that kind of discipline had died out.”

Meyer first became concerned about the soldier on Sept. 21, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s exercise Free Lion was wrapping up, Stars and Stripes said.

Meyer first noticed Romers standing guard at the bridge on Monday, the newspaper said.

“On Thursday he was still there, although the Dutch had left the area. On Friday, he told me his unit must have forgotten him, and I called the military police, who came and picked him up,” the newspaper quoted Meyer as saying.