Otakar Hašek

“All of them were Germans. German was the most spoken language among us. French was spoken officially only. Wonderful guys, they would never walk out on you. We used to say that the Foreign Legion must never let anyone die or leave him. No matter who it was, whether Meisner or Gavritch – he was an old parachutist who was at war on Crete. How did they get there? They were in a cage and the French came there: 'You'll go to the Legion and you'll get French citizenship there. Otherwise you have no idea how long you'll be captives.' Some used to say: 'I've been in the army all my life so I went to the army again.'”

“Boys said: 'Why are you scared, we will go to Czechoslovakia, what can happen to us? It will be better than in Vietnam. You can at least have a bath in prison every week and you get something to eat, why are you scared.' We were consoling one another. They brought us to Čierná pri Čope and they didn't let us out of the wagon. The next day came some civilians and they said: 'We are officials of “I have no idea of which” Ministry. Nothing will happen to you.' But they were all StB (State Security) members. They shut us in a compartment, they bought us food and beer, they accompanied us to Prague. They detached our wagon and shifted it at a side line and there was a green military bus. We were given a towel each. Němček said: 'Let's have a bath boys.' Shucks, we had to cover our eyes and they led us to Anton. They took us to Ruzyně. Then we were transported to Pankrác prison.”

“When the legion was supposed to arrive for an action, they had to arrive at the crack of dawn. We had to set off at three at night and we went where we knew their fortification was. The worst was when monkeys were there. The sods started making racket and the Vietnamese knew we were coming.”

“Did a head-to-head fight ever happen? They couldn't reach us because there was a steep slope. At some other places the slope was not so steep. Once masses of Vietnamese assaulted the third troop that was protecting the area. I personally haven't experienced it but the boys said they got as far as trenches and they had to beat the Vietnamese with their gunstocks. Otherwise they shoot from quite a distance. You were terrified and you were shooting not knowing where. You were not shooting at someone but simply in order to calm down. Well, it was a weird war. The worst about it all was you couldn't trust anyone. You saw an old woman in the village. She was carrying a heavy bag. You either checked her or let her go. It could happen that the bag was full of grenades. It was risky. Or boys were on guard. Whenever anything moved at night they started shooting there. When they investigated it in the morning they discovered they had killed a woman with a child. They didn't know, it was dark and they protected themselves. It was no fun. You were young, daft and you carried your colts low.”