Howdy,

My dad had to go through the mandatory service in the 80s in the Czechoslovak Army. He told me a couple funny stories, so I would like to share them with you.

The armies of the Warsaw Pact had several different specializations. Our speciality was Recon and Chemical warfare. Ofc, we were also expected to hold the brunt of the NATO forces before the rest of the troops arrived, so we were disposable. This did not lead to particularly good morale, especially post 1968.

My dad was Recon. As a part of his duties he learned how to do Recon stuff, drive BVPs, parachute and other fun stuff as well. He doesn't consider it anything special, since a lot of other guys had to do the same.

There was a large training exercise where there was a large mechanised operation going on. My dads BVP was to cruise around, observe and be a nuisance. The training area was in a protected wildlife reservation though. This meant they couldn't go off road much with their vehicles. He asked the CO:

"What if we meet another BVP on a road and it is the enemy?"

The CO thought about it. Then he answered:

"Just pretend you haven't seen each other."

Off they went. They loaded up their BVP with water and MREs, performed the requested tasks and also funnily enough waved at the enemy BVP as they actually did pass each other. After a while they spotted a juicy target. A field kitchen. He and his lads popped out of their BVP, stealthily ran up to the kitchen and effortlessly took it over. Wasn't much of a task, there was only one cook there.

The cook told them:

"Guys, at least tie me up so they don't chew me out for not fighting you."

They obliged. The cook was happily tied up and they ransacked the place. Now, recce troops had to make do. This meant stealing, hunting or whatever they needed to do in the field to survive. You can't imagine the joy they had when they found tons of řízeks (schnitzels), bottles of vodka and cartons od cigarettes. They yoinked everything. Everything.

Loaded up the BVP, drove off into the woods, set up camp and got loaded. Some hours later the main CO managing the exercise started yelling into the radio:

"Which one of you fuckers robbed the officers kitchen?"

Dead radio silence. My dad and his pals laughed. The officers were usually career assholes. Screw them. After some more yelling on the radio the comms ceased.

The op ended, my dad returned with his BVP to the base. There awaited them their local CO, a fairly good guy. They stood at attention as he gave them a knowing look. Then he said:

"It was you, wasn't it?"

They did not answer. After a few seconds he just gave up. He told them to shut up about it and walked off. After all, they performed as recon.

Some time later my dad found out that the officers complained about their kitchen being ransacked to the main CO. This led to the yelling on the radio. As he was an experienced soldier, gears were turning in his head. He turned to the officers and ask them, how the hell did a couple dudes rob an officers field kitchen? Did they not have any guards stationed?

The lower grade officers went either white or bright red. He then unloaded onto them that in combat situation they could have been poisoned or ambushed. They blatantly disregarded the safety of their field kitchen. So not only were they going to be hearing about this after the exercise. He also forced them to survive the rest of the exercise on standard grade grunt MREs, figuring that thats what they would have in reality.