Ing. Vladimír Laštůvka

"At night on the 20th , when I came back home late at night, back to the barracks, I could speak about that, so an emergency said: ‚You are in charge!‘ – ‚You are drunk!‘ – They shook me around again: ‚You got to see the head commander immediately!‘ So I got up, got dressed and left to see the headquarters. When I came in, there was a gathering of commanders. It seemed just like the movie Ceasar` s baker and Baker`s ceasar: Everyone out, everyone in! SO when I came in, everyone got out and lieutenant colonel, Mr. Velecký said: ‚So look, this and that is happening, the Warsaw Pact armies are occupying us and we are ordered not to counteract, we have clear orders so we are having a discussion and there are opinions you should be interned as you are going to complicate the situation. I am against it, so I urge you to cooperate.‘ I replied: ‚Well and what shall we do? We cannot counteract and when they come here, should be give up our guns too?‘ He said: ‚We do not have such orders.‘ So how shall we get ready? ‚That is why we are here!‘ So everyone in back again and we continued. The result of discussion was that at night on the 20th August we built or they did, I was just observing, but naughty, a tank defense of the barracks and the tanks drove out, one tank was standing right at the courtyard against the gate and the headquarters and we sent out a motorized battalion, wel they did, I was just a soldier, a petty officer, but they were behaving very decently then. And the half year starting from the 1968 until August, it was just a different world and it was worth talking about the change of people, but that is a wider theme, and the August 21 is important now. So we sent out motorized soldiers to the post office at the station, in the streets, so that the city will be controlled, the connecting company was broadcasting ‚Kontrarevolucija nět‘, a Russian text I wrote, a Polish doctor of the unit, as he was a Pole, and our soldiers were broadcasting that. Reconnaissance company was sent out in the mountains around Šumperk to report on the movements the ‚liberating‘ army, for us to get information on the status quo. Obviously there was a sequel to it, which I will talk about after finishing this story řeknu, so that is how we reacted – or the unit did. They reacted the described way, not me, but I was a part of the atmosphere as it was. Some stuff was brought out from the ammunition depots, so that we were ready to fulfil tasks (orders – editor` s note). The Poles were occupying us, it was a Polish division and they asked for food, when their headquarters came, but we did not want to give them even water, you might remember that. So the unit reacted… We said, and I was present at several negotiations: ‚We got everything in control, you saw the soldiers in the city, at the station, there is no contrarevolution here at all! But we got order and guns. But when they were entering the courtyard, through the gate, the head of the tank canoon was aiming at them. And anyone knows what a tank shooting from a fifty metre distance can do, so it had a lot of calming character. Reaction of the Czech part was: We got guns too, if you have not notived yet. So what shall we do? Where should we… So the final result was, they asked us to settle down and we chose a place for them, training grounds behind Šumperk towards Velké Losiny, there was a shooting grounds, so that we were our of sight. Contacts were established but in the city they never…, we kept it in control, the Czechoslovak army."