The soldiers guarding the Royal Palace in Oslo are also feeling the summer heat. They were served water Thursday evening, yet on the whole it’s business as usual for them.
The Royal Guard stands outside the Royal Palace all day, every day. Each guard’s shift normally lasts two hours, but this can be adjusted during periods of extreme weather.
—“On particularly hot or cold days, the Commander of the Guard can reduce the length of the shift to just one hour, or however long is reasonable,” says Lars Strøm to the Norwegian News Agency. He is head of communications in the Armed Forces.
With an outside temperature of 30°C (86°F) in Oslo on Thursday, which is felt closer to 40°C (104°F) under the Royal Guard’s thick wool uniforms, even the soldiers need to replenish their fluids. The Norwegian News Agency got to witness Thursday evening the soldiers of the Royal Guard serving each other water while on duty.
—“Even our best soldiers absolutely must drink water to be able to carry out their duties. Remember to drink water and enjoy your summer!” Strøm says.
The Royal Guard wears the same wool uniform year-round, but the clothes worn under the uniform vary by season.
—“In the wintertime the soldiers of the Royal Guard will often wear several layers of wool under the uniform. In the summertime they just wear t-shirts,” Strøm says.
Climate change, the unexpected harbinger of Norwegian republicanism! I mean, who would volunteer to put up with this crap, and for what? Seriously! To defend some state-mandated celebrity? I’d feel embarrassed if I were so young and subjecting myself to these sorts of conditions over something so nonsensical.
I swear, some day the soldiers of the Royal Guard are going to begin dropping like flies as not even water will be enough to cool them down. Maybe they’ll eventually start entertaining the possibility of changing their uniforms to something more befitting of our changing climate, but even that might not be enough. Maybe they’ll have to do shifts of less than even one hour, at the same time as they’ll have a hard time finding new soldiers willing to risk their lives standing still doing nothing. Maybe the “all day, every day” thing will start to have holes of increasing size.
Who knows.