Bear Scare Brings Finnish Army Drill to a Halt

A brown bear disrupted a military exercise in Finland after it strayed inside a military base where 3,000 members of a paramilitary brigade were brushing up their combat skills, the newspaper Iltalehti reported.

Finding its way inside the base perimeter the animal gobbled up the soldiers’ meals and then started tearing up the personal effects of the fighting men who had wisely chosen to take cover inside army trucks to stay out of the way of the deadly threat.

Happily, no one was hurt.

“Bears normally stay away from people, but this one wasn’t scared at all,” the Kainuu brigade’s press secretary told the newspaper.

Deciding that the bear posed a threat to the soldiers, the brigade’s commanders contacted the police requesting permission to kill the intruder. Permission was granted and the bear was “neutralized.”

According to the newspaper, that was the first time a bear had strayed inside a military base in the past 13 years.

The Kainuu brigade, stationed near the town of Kajaani in central Finland, is one of the three permanent readiness brigades in the Finnish Army.