As a Swede, I often think we overdo the compounding of words. And then i see a finnish word with like 25 letters lol.

Helsinki got the summer Olympics in 1940... but the war happened. The YLE (Finnish broadcasting company) bought state of the art film cameras and equipment for the 1940 games so those were used for filming the winter- and the cont.war. That's why we have a lot good footage.

I love the Finnish people !! I’ve been with them for a few months met a few military men/woman. And they really love their country and will/would defend it to the death. Helvete Perkele!🇫🇮

I am a Finn living in Germany and when Russia attacked Ukraine, I said to my german friend I will defend Finland and our freedom till death and his response was: I don't care for Germany, I can live under Putin. Shows the massive difference how Finnish attitude and German attitude after WW 2 was built.

24:40 The thing he's using in his hands is called "jäänaskali". It's a special safety device designed to help climbing out from the water back to ice. It's basically like two sheath knifes attached with a string but the blade is more like a spike. The idea is to keep it hanging from your neck while walking on frozen lakes so you can easily reach it if you fall through the ice. You can get one from most Finnish supermarkets and the cost is between 5-10 EUR (that's meant for anybody walking on the frozen lake, not a military device).

Two fingers up means oath, "vala" in Finnish. It is an official promise to defend our land. It has been given under 400 hundred years for now. Still today.

TRA = Taistelu rakennetulla alueella = Combat in a built up area

29:28 Decades ago when I was in the Army we had a one day 80 km bicycle march with full combat gear, worst part was several kilometers of trail with mud and slush where we had to drag and carry our bicycles. I thought I can't make it but somehow I managed it.

We also have over 12,000 females taking part in this. During WW2, even little girls were in charge with tasks like taking care of babies, sewing special mittens for our soldiers and so on. Teen girls (along with older women) kept watch for enemy planes 24/7. The army's laundry was washed, their bread baked etc. by women. If someone reading this is interested to find out more, there is a museum in Tuusula called Lotta museo. Visit there and find out about forgotten history.

17:50 There's no such thing as "too snowy" or "too rainy" in Finnish Defence Forces. Even conscripts go outdoors by the plan regardless of the amount of snow or low temperature. When I did my mandatory service, I was a bit unlucky to had to do the timed reviewed tests (including tearing down and rebuilding the service weapon blindfolded) outdoors in the snow while it was -30 °C. The only hard part was the teardown and rebuilding the weapon because that thing is really cold to hold with bare hands in such a low temperaturs and you cannot do some parts of the task with mittens on. The problem with training with live ammunition with live guns is that the regular staff (non-conscripts personnel) gets extra payment for such training and it gets really expensive really fast if the exercise requires lots of personnel for extended periods. I think the regular staff may have extra for too cold, too wet, too dirty, working around usual business hours, having to sleep in the woods, etc. Combine multiple of those and it gets really expensive per hour. For conscripts, it's another Tuesday.

USA citizens send love, prayers and support for all our Allie’s on all other fronts 😘

3:48 From Wikipedia: " The Schwurhand (German pronunciation: [ˈʃvuːɐ̯hant], "swear-hand"; Dutch: spreekgebaar) is a heraldic charge depicting the hand gesture that is used in Germanic Europe and neighboring countries, when swearing an oath in court, in office or in swearing-in. The right hand is raised, with the index finger and middle finger extended upwards; the last two digits are curled downwards against the palm. The thumb is shown slightly curled or raised. The use of the gesture dates back many centuries. Recruits of the Pontifical Swiss Guard at the Vatican City use the sign when swearing their oath of allegiance to the Pope, in a ceremony performed on 6 May every year since the Sack of Rome in 1527."

Those red things are called "naskali" and you're supposed to always carry them when moving on ice, military or civilian, ... saves a lot of lives

@14:40 Funny, that you noticed about the tempo of his speech. I think he is the only one in the video talking quite "normally". He is still talking very clearly, but all the other professional soldiers are talking like stereotypical army guys :) So slow and extremely clear and they have that weirdly clear and strong "R" sounds. Like every single one of the people who are working in the army of the police are using that "clear" style of speaking.

Voluntary exercises (MPK) are mainly personal skills and not with your unit. But higher caliber exercises (VEH) might collect your squad and your employer couldnt say no to them.

The spikes the soldier was using at 23:34 are called "naskalit" in finnish. They are basicly just two spikes hanging around your neck like a necklace and they are used to get out of water when there is ice.

The device being setup at 26:25 is a radio link. It is targeted to another one at the other end, which can be tens of kilometers away to provide secure communication channel that is harder to detect than a omnidirectional antenna.

20:33 The 3 numbers at the end is the height from sea level. This is especially important for us in the artillery when shooting at hills or behind hills. We need to know how high the target is from sea level to maintain perfect accuracy.

The interviewer Jere Hietala has solid background from FDF, if I'm not mistaken he is former SOF operator. He is also active in anti poaching organisation's.

Those 2 fingers to me,means promise.

My grandfather was in the winter war. And my father and his sister had to sleep with blankets over their windows cos of the bombings nearby. It was hard, to say the least. Grandpa made it and came home in one piece after the war was done. My dad has told me a bit of his military training. He's born in 1939. So the training was much harder, than it is now. Some things are just mind-blowing. Can't imagine going through that back then.

28:01 Jere is former professional aggressive inline skating dude, after that he pursued career in professional photography so he is also award winning photographer. All around great dude in my books.

A few years after I did my normal army duty, I was called back for a rehearsal training. Went three times. When the fourth call came I wasn’t able to join it. Since I then ”dropped” off from accepting the task, I never got any more calls. That feels bad. Now I’m 59 and shuld probably give up hope of getting any calls. Fortunatly we have a lot of guns in the family, so practicing is no problem. But I do miss those long weekend calls for some real excercise.

14:30 he’s not speaking really fast, he’s just got a heavy rolling R and a bit of accent/dialect 😅

The cool thing is, a lot of the training you get from those voluntary excercises by Defence Forces and other organizations can be transferred to your everyday civil life, such as the seen rescuing yourself from ice, or leadership training. Those are wholesome experiences all and all.

First of all, the Finns Valmet rifle is dope.... secondly, you REALLY want to invade THAT Country, which is filled with Pipehitters??? Good luck.

Thank you for this reaction video! cant wait part 2 👍👍

14:45 I think he is talking slightly faster than a typical Finn but the difference is maybe 10-20%. The think you have to understand about Finnish is that intonation and rythm goes by syllable which may make it sound like he's talking really fast. One Finnish word has around 3 syllables. The military personnel in this video was mostly speaking slower than a typical Finn to make sure that the words are easy to understand even if there were background noise.

Theo you are really good guy! Thanks for all these videos! You are always welcome Finland!!!

20:36 MGRS coordinates - last digit is height from the sea level. You need to know how to do this, to be able to give commands to artillery. Every leader in Finnish army will learn this trait.

The FDF uses standard Nato MGRS with maps, we've been training guys to use it even prior to Nato membership. Gotta say, it's simple and handy, and the cheapest tool for fire control together with a manual direction circle.

There's a lot of different courses to go. Cqb, recon, sniping, medical stuff, coms, artillery/mortar stuff, electrical defence, anti tank etc. all branches are covered. So as a reservist you could learn a lot from different branches and know basics from then or even become proficient in many.

Hi! Thanks for reacts. What I would like to remind, is that: (1) Finnish active reserves are like 300,000 soldiers (5% of citizens), and (2) "passive" reserve is around 900,000 (15% of citizens). That passive reserve is people who have had basic military training, but do not have their wartime position, and generally not actively trained anymore. OK, but considering the number of total inhabitants, in US scale: (1) active reserve is 300m * 5% ~17 million soldiers, and (2) passive reserve is 300m * 15% ~ 54m soldiers. For a country, sending that large amount of your population to a war is of course unbearable - and it can be only happen if facing an existential threat. There is another country preparing for this kind of existential threat, and it is Israel. If you compare Finnish defense forces to Isreals one, you probably will find lots of common in the organization and the way of thinking.

We have a tough and effective training and therefore we have a strong, motivated and professional reserve, allmost one million soldiers. There is no room for the weak and we all have to be tough and our training must be tough. Every Finnish reservist tries his best for his team and is very loyal to his country and comrades in arms. This is because in conscript training we put our conscripts through extremely hard training and more than 90% do well because they are already motivated and in good shape. Most of them have been exercising since they were at school and everyone knows how to move on any terrain in the wilderness. Training conscripts is easy because of this. Okay still there are some lazy and stupid people (we call them "rubberheads"), but we also have effective training methods for them to get rid of their bad habits. For example let's say there is a guy who can't keep up with the rest of the platoon because he's too fat because of his wrong lifestyle choices or he's just otherwise stupid. So when you tell him that if he doesn't start trying harder the whole platoon will suffer with him. This means for example continuing the exercise as long as it goes well or skipping meal breaks. And when he knows that the other guys will punish him for this he tries more harder. This method always works and it has been used for decades. My father told me even tougher methods when he was in the army. Of course this will horrify some "rainbowguys" but the army is not a girls school. You have to be ruthless and tough if you are going to survive the war and defend your country and your family. We don't need weak and stupid soldiers. In this way we harden the weak ones.

Thank you! You do good work!👍

There is one place on earth people don't play with. That's the Scandinavian countries. Sweden/Finland/Norway. We tend to bully each other for fun. But we are bound in blood if anything should go serious. Also the Danes, who are our southern point of security are included.

Thanks for the video, didn't know about this as I am fully reservist and should say would only be support personnel for actual fighters (my condition isn't made for fighting atm). Was really interesting to check this out with you as my brother's kids are now training to be Jaegers finnish special forces training. So was interesting to see what they might be getting compared to my own 20 years ago training.

I was in a review exercise this year and they basically told the stuff we would do if something would start happening. Mostly it was for refreshing memory, but they said that it was also a gathering, cause if the shit would go down it would be the same group handling it. It was a simulation, what we would do if he would have to do. Very usefull experience. After sleeping outdoors in a tent surrounded by snow for few days, I once again started to appreciate walls and roof!

Those CQB clips were from Santahamina and the facilities are pretty good. You have multiple built up houses next to each other, with multiple floors. So you can really train both pure CQB, but also moving to the buildings how to move in between the buildings. Pushing buildings with vehicles etc. Really cool stuff

That air defence missile system is called Crotale. It's a French system mounted on top of a Finnish PASI armored personnel vehicle. I'm trained as a squad leader of one of those. They are pretty close to their retirement age, but it's still really cool and functional system.

29:28 Yup, bicycle marches. Back in the 70s, when mechanization was far from a universal fact of life in the FDF, my dad served in a unit that utilized bikes a whole lot and (by his own estimate) cycled well over 1000km in his year of service. Nowadays bikes are a lot less prevalent due to the vastly improved availability of mechanized transports, and admittedly they're not a great option in rough terrain or situations where there is a high risk of hostile contact. But if you need to move troops via roads through a relatively safe area and cars/trucks aren't available, cycling can get people where they need to go a lot faster and with relatively less fatigue than marching on foot.

Voluntary exercises are one thing. I’ve only been to mandatory reservist refresher exercises and they’ve been always integrated in to the final large scale field training exercise of the conscripts. So we work together with them as a part of a larger organization. I’ve always been training with the same team that we had in my conscription service and doing of course the same job, our job. And our job is still very much in muscle memory to this day. The voluntary exercises are often as they said ”preparing” for future exercises but also can be just additional training, a friend of mine got an invitation to a voluntary exercise(he is a ranger scout sniper) and they trained only reconnaissance. In the end they were pretty much dumped in to the forests for three days with a mission to scout a target area and return back.

Dude. Fantastic video!

Thank you, Theo, for taking into account little Finland's ability to defend itself. I myself joined the reserve union when Russia attacked Ukraine and yes, there is no assault rifle of its own, which is really hard to get, but when you get to shoot with them, it's great and we have a credible deterrent against Russia and the know we are ready.

that "review exercises" should have been "refresher and retraining" exercises. basically you might be reassigned and then do individual retraining then the whole group is gathered up in a refresher where they train together.

At around the 10 minute mark when they're in the buildings, that area is in daily use by conscripts and it's a very nice and diverse for all type of urban training including breaching, explosives, rappelling, stairs etc. I served my military time in that garrison (if that's the right word??) where they are and mostly doing what they're doing and some more advanced stuff aswell ofc.

20:35 The coordinates include height (from sea level in meters) as the third number. I guess it's meant for artillery use.

Thanks for your reaction Sir

great way to keep your forces ready districts have access to the tools and people on tap !!!

Fun to watch these videos now that I myself am actually in the army, 50 days into my service Ps. That top is in fact very comfortable

15:22 A cannelure is a groove or indentation found on the outside of a cartridge case, typically used for crimping or securing the bullet in place. By painting this cannelure blue, as seen here, it becomes easily visible and serves as an indicator that the cartridge contains blank ammunition. Unfortunately not every Western country marks its ammunition according to exactly the same rules, although it might be safer if that were so.

The interviewer Jere is just a cool guy. One of those dudes who has heart rate of 30 and propably sleeps in chair one eye open in his bunker just waiting for the call. Fully geared up for combat the way even Texans would be jealous ;D

If you get summoned to voluntary exercise, they dont expect all of the summonees to actually participate. The ones who do, are usually integrated to ongoing exercises of the current conscripts and you get to prepare yourself with your personal skills for the review exersice. When you get summoned to review exercise, all of your squad will be there and you will train with them.

Wow! Feels like Christmas! No time to watch now, but just had to comment 😆 Checking this out later!

You said that: " I need to go back there" (about 5:20), you are always welcome here bro!

Just remember the Finnish also fought off the Russians during WW2 successfully. Self defense for them is the most similar to how Israel feels and operates . So glad they are in NATO also ❤❤

I got a weird but funny moment at 19:45 -- although I understand spoken English fairly well most of the time, and for the rest of the video your voice comes through loud and clear -- even after many repeats, I could only hear you say in plain Finnish: "Näin se käy." on that moment. That'd be "That's how it's done." in English. Imho this might be quite the perfect Finnish phrase to comment on the program where the Defense forces train reservists to train other reservists -- which was the topic discussed just around those very seconds. Such Finnish words sound absolutely awesome coming from you. Keep up the good work, mate!

Plz come back to Finland! I was on the train going from Turku to Helsinki at the same time, you were going from Helsinki to Turku by train. So we missed each other by rail. Would love to meet you man.

31:14 that rifle is made by finnish company Ensio Firearms and model is KAR-21

those 3 digits at the end is the height above sea level

those last three digits u were wondering about was altitude from the sea level :) extremely important for us in the artillery.

Hello a finn reservist here. :) in the few reserve exercises i have been to the voluntary ones were more basic stuff like range, patrol, checkpoints etc and when i got to the real deal we had 2 range days and then we did exactly what m unit would do in case of war. there were simulated air raids, other units/payed defense force personell acting as the opposing force or saboteurs and we had to function as we would in a real situation. Off course it was toned down so no excessive use of force for close combat etc. I believe that the voluntary ones they invite people who have similar war time positions/jobs to the same exercise so no matter if some don't come we still have a functioning unit from people who would be doing the same things anyway even if its not the exact same people there would be in the unit one would be with in war. :)

The tradition of raising the right hand during oaths, with two fingers extended (often the index and middle fingers), combines historical, cultural, and symbolic elements. This practice has roots in ancient cultures where the right hand symbolized truth, loyalty, and righteousness. By raising the right hand with extended fingers, individuals physically emphasize their commitment to honesty and seriousness. This standardized gesture is a universally recognized tradition used during oaths, legal proceedings, and significant ceremonies to symbolize a solemn and sincere pledge.

Many fins got also at home those things called ice claws (jäänaskalit, not straight translation, cos, naskali does not mean claws.) to get out from the water on to the ice if you suddenly sink through the thin ice. In this video under 24:24 - 25:00 min. in this link is picture of jäänaskalit in their own holsters, you hang them over your shoulders behind the neck and they lay down next to your chest, so, you can pick them right up when things happen. Cos, in Finland there is around 57 000 lakes size over hectare and at least 500 square meter lakes around 168 000, so, we can talk about 57 - 168 thousand lakes.

When the Defence Forces hold these voluntary exercises, they are for personnel who have signed the volunteer agreement. So after that they are expected to show up just like to standard review exercises. Of course signing that volunteer agreement is the voluntary part. But they do know who are going to show up, even though the exercise is "voluntary". As long as the volunteer agreement is active you are expected to show up and can be punished for not doing so.

Thanks for the video. Although I definitely support our defense forces, I sadly don't know much about what they do. Now I know a bit more which is awesome. Finnish Defense Forces held a handful of larger exercises in real-life surroundings at different areas of the country last summer, and the coastal town I live in was one of the lucky ones. I live downtown, and unfortunately I didn't get to see anything from my balcony. And obviously I didn't want to go snoop anywhere else and be an obstruction to anything. One evening I started hearing something where I thought "is that artillery, or what is going on" but it turned out to be fireworks from a private event nearby. I was kind of disappointed, I have to admit.

7:00 In case of large scale mobilisation of the reserves, majority of the tasks in receiving, booking, equipping and training reservists is done by other reservists. This is why voluntary exercises for these key personnel are important.

On The map grid intentifier, the last 3 digits was for elevation above sea level.

Finland won gold on sniping compaction, 2023, Including europeian countries and USA.

the movie you mean is full metal jacket - in vietnam, sharpshooter injures a squadmate who went yolo - that lures a comrade in , who then also gets injured or killed... etc i am 100% sure it is that scene you had in mind.

TRA = Taistelu rakennetulla alueella = Combat in a built area/environment so basicly CQB.

I think the volunteer exercises are like a mobilization exercise, the actual contacting the reserves and getting them in ready to fight IS the main part of the volunteer ex.

I get why you would think Finnish is spoken super fast but there is an explanation that I think could help. Basically in Finnish we say less words than in English, even if the sentence contains the exact same thing. For example; "Could you put the oven on?" has the same meaning as "Voitko pistää uunin päälle?" (the word 'voitko' is shortened to be less formal, formally you could use 'voisitko' instead) In Finnish we can add meaning to the word without using more words, instead the word just gains a bit more length. This is called a morpheme or in Finnish morfeemi. It's quite fascinating and a challenge to foreigners learning Finnish. If you're interested, I suggest googling more about it. Hopefully this helped, thanks for an awesome video and I hope your day/night goes well :)

They also have some courses for civilians as "preparedness for war". I´ve practiced shooting the RK-62 and Glock 9mm with them without having gone to the army.

Will also point out that the 900k reservist number is especially bonkers when you consider that Finland’s population is under 6 million. In the US that would mean something like 59 million reservists. Let that sink in for a moment.

Nice they have the swedish Gripen C in a video for Finnish defense forces to emphasis the military cooperation !

20:30 the 3 numbers at the end is the elevation, not really used when communicating, but think some systems show it.

in about 14 min you asked do we have to pay for the courses. Answer is Yes. In MPK voluntary military courses you usually have to pay. depending on the course 30-100€. UNLESS it is a certain course that is made-to-order form the FDF. Then you are able to apply and you can get an voluntary "invitation" to a rehearsal and then you can get your travelling costs covered or sometimes in addition even some small daily allowance (so it is regarded as service time), but to these courses they check your specialization and hand pick you. the spots that are not filled get then replaced by other voluntaries.

you said he spoke fast at 14:30, well i am here to tell you that it only feels like it because he breathed in mid sentence. So there were no "pauses" to breath. To me a Finnish it sounded extremely clear perfect way to talk to someone who teaches.

The thing theyre learning at 20:20 is MGRS, the three digits at the end are height in relation to sea level.

16:12 Upinniemi, hell yeah! served there

20:32 you wonder what are the 3 numbers after the grid, that is "korkeus merenpinnasta" = height above sea level

The instructor at 14:00 is really talking fast, even as Fin, I have hard time trying to understand him, I mean I understand, but my brain is going overdrive 😂 Thank you for all the great vids 🎉

On man .. nice to see our old fort commander Marko Laaksonen still in active duty :)

20:50 It's hight/altitude over sea surface in meters.

In regard to 18:08. Yes iit's nice to have those environments, but also we mostly train under the open sky, what ever she decides to be that day. That's also where we'll fight :)

Nice to see Finland is not alone defending herself anymore like it was back WWII. But, if we still were, it would not change a thing. I am one of the "reservist", age almost 50 and yeah I am ready to take the gun and go to defend my home land. Just like our grand fathers and moms did before us.

7:40 In the voluntary part they usually train officers, NCOs and other people who then lead and train the rest of the troops in the actual training. Like the first step of mobilization. 14:00 You need to pay a small fee for the MPK courses. Voluntary refresher training is free and for non-voluntary training you get paid. 14:30 He doesn't talk fast at all. 24:40 Those are "naskalit", a short spike and a handle, specifically designed for just this purpose. You wear them on your neck, ready to be used, when crossing any frozen body of water. 26:00 and 27:20 Crotale NG or ITO-90M, French made SHORAD system. 8 ready to launch missiles, radars & operators all on a single Finnish PASI chassis. It's getting old and needs to be replaced in a few years.

@3:26 If I'm not mistaken that is the jeagers marching as they have arrived back to Finland after training in Germany. My great grandfather is in that video as he is the phase leader (dunno what it's called in english) when they are marching as he was about 2meters tall😄.

Reservist thing is quite a "big hobby" for several of people I know. They almost all have done it for years or decades, it sticks. What I know about it, there really is a wide range os courses and skills that you can acquire depending "on your taste". Some are for beginners, others for more advanced students. In my opinion, almost all participating are keeping rather modest and almost low profile of the stuff for example in social media. Things like a packed backpack with sentence "forest weekend" may appear but very rarely anything specific about the action. Very discreet people from all walks of life and most income/occupancy groups. I would say there also is a very small percent of so-called war crazy or trigger happy people. Discipline in gun use and code, storing them etc. all the hassle with legistlation and paperwork is always done spot-on. I think it is a thing of honor for them. Aside from the actual reservist and defence things in here, there is quite an amount of people, who regularly go out for hunting and other. It doesn´t necessarily mean anything for defence directly, but the whole "outdoors.thing" and a little bit of surviving outdoors is IMO on the rise here. As well as all household level small-scale preparation for, let´s say, a rainy day. But its all in kidof a good way.

Shootimg is around 30€ (ammo and gun incluuded) and the other MPK courses are free.

I think the combat shirt is Särmä TST L4 from Varusteleka

About the review exercises, FDF also orders people to participate in those, and that's where certain people may be ordered, thus making it into a unit exercising together.

Coordinates with three numbers in the back means "altitudes above sea-level"

I think the 2 fingers are meant to show that you are not crossing your fingers and thereby are being honest when taking a pledge etc.

The great great grandfather of the wife to my brother was president Svinhufvud (literally, "Pig's Head"; origins in the Swedish nobility and a story about brave men who saved the life of a Swedish king from a wild boar). Hence the reason he is my favorite president of the whole era of independence of Finland.

From the beginning video when they were training urban area fighting I have to say that in Helsinki there is regiment that is specialized to it and most the techniques that they use come from Israel defence forces as they are definitely very experience in that. But what I also wanted to say is that even I did my service almost 20 years ago I still remember the room entry and take over techniques since we practiced those so much and I have done couple of review exercises. It was so much fun.

Cold beer to go with this! Yass!

Of those 900,000 trained reservists in peacetime, about 280,000 are hand-picked for their personal tasks in mobilized wartime troops. Over time, unfortunately we all tend to start losing our fitness, some of us get health problems, so replacements and updates are needed to be kept up constantly. If the wartime strength requires replenishments to cover inevitable casualties, there will always be plenty to choose from. Of course, the fittest and best trained are chosen to form the fighting troops, while the rest will continue in their civilian jobs, or they are securing the most important functions for the civilian society (like traffic, communications, distribution of electricity, water, and food, various emergency services, operating civil defense shelters, etc.)

29:28 Bicycles are effective means of transportation after one or more EMPs.