Horseplay below Roklan Peak

In 1956 František Mandák began his compulsory military service with the Border Guards. After initial training he was allocated to Roklan Company, named after one of the highest Šumava peaks nearby. His new life was one full of the sparking electricity of the Iron Curtain fences, full of drills in the tough climatic conditions. A routine exercise would often devolve into a life-threatening situations: “One group defended the Roklan Cabin and the other tried to attack it. I was the corporal in charge of that. Lieutenant Waltr was watching from afar and he gave me the advice: ‘You have to go through the window.’ There are two small windows up there, facing west. I tried to get to one of them. Even though I knew that the other group occasionally fired blanks from it. The SMGs were given different barrels, narrower ones to give them a bigger kick. So I pushed myself into the window, luckily I had my old Model 24 in front of me, with its long cartridge shielding my face. The boy defending the cabin fired a burst at me. I collapsed out of the window shouting: ‘I’m blind!’ My whole face was pocked with the flakes from the blank round, just my eyes and nose which were protected by the sub. I opened my eyes, stinging with tears of course, and I could see! Lieutenant Waltr immediately put an end to this kind of horseplay and we never trained in such a way again.”