Column | Safety – NRC

There was a soldier on the train, it was probably meant as a reassuring idea. Too bad he didn’t have a gun with him. A few years ago, MP Peter Valstar (VVD) thought it was a great plan to let soldiers travel for free in public transport. To be sure, I went for a moment, he is now an alderman in the municipality of Westland. Had his plan been silently introduced?

The soldier had glasses with an invisible frame and all colored ribbons on his chest. Was he high in rank? Or were we dealing here with a hero that was distinguished because of heroism far away? I was reminded again of Marco Kroon, Knight in the Military William Order, who had put himself back on the map by the festivities around eighty years of freedom in Wageningen from scratch and the only one to overpower a demonstrator who had barely rolled out his banner.

Many people saw it as a new proof of his heroism. I don’t want to get rid of that too much, but at the same time I am also cautiously relieved that not everyone is stuck with such a sharply adjusted radar within built -up areas. But here in this train compartment I was allowed to feel safe, if I did not make suspicious movements.

It was a long time since I had seen a soldier in public transport. In the past it choked on the sun and freed days of the soldiers on the platforms. They sucked with plunge bags that they struck very impractically over their backs when getting in and out. Filled with dirty laundry. The more soldiers you saw, the more secure you knew that as a country we should never end up in a war.

No, now. You barely come across them, but if you see a soldier nowadays, they will hit you with their professionalism and ruthlessness in the face. They have chosen this and are motivated to the bone. Better a small fanatic army than a large group of involuntary and unquestionable.

It is not entirely coincidentally the vision of our future Pope Wim Eijk about the Catholic Church in the Netherlands: rather a small, loyal herd than a fragmented mass of half believers. It is also the recipe with which the NSB remained so small in the war years, then officially, because now that the archives have been opened, it appears that in almost every family it appears that someone at the top of that movement.

I safely reached the destination station, as always.

Marcel van Roosmalen Writes a column on Monday and Thursday.

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