Swedish army to go 9-to-5

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/16/1060936086576.html

Stockholm: Sweden's armed forces will operate only during office hours for the rest of the year to cut costs, military headquarters said today.

They will also cut fighter plane patrols to a minimum, keep navy ships in port, mothball armoured vehicles and stop using large calibre live ammunition during exercises.

The centre-left Social Democratic government has told the military to cut spending by 450 million crowns ($A83.87 million) this year as part of an overall effort to keep the budget from falling into deficit.

Militarily non-aligned Sweden spends just over 40 billion crowns per year on defence, or about 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product.

A parliamentary defence commission said in a recent report that the likelihood of Sweden facing a military threat in the foreseeable future was very small.

It was hilarous (this was 1975). They all had hair down to their asses!