Kamil Volný

“We set out for a military exercise that was held in Šumava, in the region of Kájov. Although I don’t recall the exact date of this exercise, I think that it was in early spring, sometime around April or early May as it was still pretty cold in the Šumava Mountains. The rain was still mixed with snow fall. We were carrying out various night exercises and operations. The conditions in which we lived there were catastrophic – we were permanently cold and went hungry all the time. To make matters even worse, one of the novices committed suicide in those days. He shot himself for unknown reasons. I heard some rumors saying that the veterans hid parts of his machine gun from him. He couldn’t bear it and shot himself with somebody else’s machine gun. He did it just as we were standing in line for lunch at the field kitchen. The shot barely missed us. It was the worst day ever. Since the moment he shot himself, we had to stay outside until the next day. The officers went ransacking through our stuff in the cabins. They were looking for live ammunition that some of the soldiers would keep. Sometimes, they didn’t use all the ammo so they just kept the spare bullets. The officers searched cabin after cabin, backpack after backpack. It was insane. In the meantime, we had to stand outside in the cold, waiting for things to come. Nobody knew when it would all be over. As was to be expected, the counter-intelligence and the military police send somebody over. It was a huge mess back then.”