Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/861022
Why? People your age were rather keen on escaping the service. You had so many other options. Well, first of all, family tradition. My grandfather fought under "Hubal's" command in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (MJR Hernyk Dobrzanski the legendary Polish "first guerilla in WW2 – read more: https://en.wiki- pedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Dobrza%C5%84ski), my father was a soldier for twenty seven years. He was based in Łask Airbase, where I am from. I remember that I loved to hug him when I was a kid. I always told my dad he smelled great, like a rifle. Apart from that, I always loved the uniforms, weapons, that army drill thing. I remember you saying that even when you were going to serve that obligatory year you have already planned to go to Jednostka Wojskowa Komandsów (JWK, Polish Special Forces Unit), you wanted to be a commando with a knife in clenched teeth, like a Rambo. Meanwhile, you ended up in a small town of Koszalin… Oh, yeah, that was my very first real encounter with the army. The only thing I have done before was shooting a Kalashnikov when I was seven years old. Neither the city of Koszalin or the Anti – Aircraft Training Centre were a real dream of mine. It quickly turned out that the possibilities for personal development were average at best. Well then, how did you end up in the 1st Special Commando Regiment (1.PSK)? I just resigned and left the army. That was a time when only professional soldiers served in 1.PSK (later con- verted and renamed to JWK). I went through a prelim- inary selection and waited for a job opening for some ten months. What were you doing then, in those ten months? I was a woodworker, working in a three – shifts system. I was making doors, windows and other stuff like that. You know, I no longer lived with my parents and the bills had to be paid. I had a brief training and started working in one of the companies in Łask that offered any jobs at all. What is quite funny, I have become a supervisor af- ter just three months. It was a first time of my life when I had some people under my command. Finally, you got yourself into the 1.PSK that you have dreamt of for so long. Did it live up to the expectations? Did you get that knife in your teeth and set on to explore nearby forests? No, not really. It was not a very easy start. Most of the guys have already served there for quite some time. As for myself, well, I never was a paratrooper, I never got really cold, I had no idea what the recon is and no clue about the special operations. And of course, I have nev- er spent a night in the forest in the shitty sleeping bag. That's what they all thought. And I just had to earn the respect of older buddies. Tell me something about your triple specialty. Was it a standard then? www.fragoutmag.com