Almost 150 people visited the brigade in Świętoszów on Tuesday as part of the regularly held Open Barracks Days. Visitors can view selected training facilities, learn about the unit’s equipment, examine weapons up close, and talk to soldiers about service in the armored brigade. One of the day’s highlights is also a visit to the Tradition Hall, where a guide briefly discusses the unit’s history, the traditions it cultivates, and the great patron of 10BKPanc, General Maczek.
This time, the brigade hosted primary-school pupils from Żary and Białołęka, as well as preschoolers from Nowe Miasteczko. It was this last group that made the strongest impression on the soldiers. “They were probably the liveliest and most energetic preschoolers I have ever seen,” laughed the group’s supervisor, Private Wojciech Świętochowski. “Pure energy.”
The children, who were barely four or five years old, behaved impeccably in the Tradition Hall, maintaining perfect silence and seriousness. Outside, however, they had to release the energy that was clearly bursting out of them.
At the Leopard Training Center, the children were welcomed by Sergeant Tomasz Potęga, who demonstrated the capabilities of the AAT simulator to the young guests. The trainer, which reproduces the interior of a Leopard 2A4 tank, invariably makes the greatest impression on young people, mainly because of its size and mobility. The rotating turret left the children astonished and delighted. Immediately after the presentation, everyone wanted to climb inside, see everything, scramble onto the highest seat, and touch the buttons.
From a safe distance, the young guests could also watch soldiers from the 1st Battalion training on real tanks. The roar of the engines and the trembling ground as the Leopard passed impressed everyone. Even those who had seemed uninterested in the equipment and soldiers until then finally had to admit that tanks are cool.
The visit to Śnieżnik was very enjoyable, although at first the children thought they were going to the cinema. The darkness in the room and the large, vivid image displayed on the screen do indeed bring a cinema auditorium to mind. However, the most unusual part was the weapons demonstration by the reconnaissance company. Since the subunit was training at the Infantry Combat Shooting Range, Lieutenant Łukasz Dzięcielski, acting commander of the company, invited the guests... to the Fire Training Ground.
There, the children had the opportunity not only to see and touch the weapons, but also to observe standard training up close. The youngsters therefore watched with concern as the fully equipped soldiers dug a trench for themselves, then searched for mines using a metal detector, helped clean the BRDM-2 Żbik armored reconnaissance vehicle, and finally were allowed inside it to observe the soldiers during training.
When asked whether they had enjoyed themselves, the preschoolers shouted: Yeeees! Apparently, it was more fun than at the Native American village the previous week. Of course, the group included both more and less enthusiastic military fans. When the girls became tired and complained that their legs hurt, the most spirited trio of boys, who always stayed at the back of the group, felt completely in their element. They boldly shook the soldiers’ hands in greeting, asked serious questions, and tried to speak in the deepest voices possible. At the end, when asked whether they wanted to join the army, they replied: “Sure. We’ll be soldiers. We can go to war too. We’re not afraid. We’ll defend our homeland.”
(report: Katarzyna Przepióra)