The cl
osest international airports to my hometown are Krakow, Poland (3 hours north), Budapest,
Hungary (4 hours south) and Vienna, Austria (5 hours west) by car. I used to hire a shuttle for the ride but two years ago I befriended one of my brother’s friends who works as a taxi driver and he appears to welcome a side gig on his days off. On my ride during this winter trip, which was planned at the last minute due to a family member’s health crisis, while chatting about the current events in the world, I found out that our driver is a former French Foreign Legion veteran. This knowledge was a great discussion topic that it made the time go by much faster. My son slept through it all stretched out across the back seat.
Our driver is about my age and he joined the legion right after the Wall went down in 1989 (link). France still has colonies which require the presence of armed forces. Interestingly, they hire only foreigners for the job to maintain peace and they pay well…extremely well actually for Eastern European standards. French soldiers serve strictly as defense within their home country and are not allowed to join the Foreign legion. Apparently some got through technicalities obtaining foreign citizenships to join their own country’s force illegally which is certainly a bit unusual. Some of the training the driver described included a month-long trip in the jungles of Venezuela and another one in the Sahara Desert where they were given basic provisions such as a compass, a map, a
knife, and a machine gun. These were solo missions to find their way to the point of rendezvous learning how to survive completely by one’s own means. He slept in the trees of the jungle and buried himself in the sand during a sandstorm. He attended joint training with US Seals and Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) which according to him are a few forces on the planet that are actually trained properly to engage in war. In his third year of service in the legiou, he received orders from his home country to join the mandatory army service of Slovakia or face four years in jail. At that time the standard mandatory training was 18 months which was shortened from the two-year standard training during communism which was completely abolished in 2006.
With all the training that this guy had in the legion, which included over 500 jumps from the airplane on all surfaces you can imagine, they placed him with a tank corps. The Slovak army apparently had a habit of assigning people outside of their specialties where mechanics were sent to cook and cooks were sent to skydive. To him, the three-month boot camp as well as the rest of his time in the service was a complete joke, but apparently others had some very different experiences and outcomes of their time. During his service, five men committed suicide, which I cannot help but mention that the media of our former authoritarian regime did not write a word about. When I was growing up my brother served as a border patrol and all of the guys I grew up with had to serve two years except for those that went to college who only served six months in administration. Slovakia has since had a professional army (no mandatory service since 2006) and the country has been a member of NATO since 2004.
Nevertheless the driver, who is by the way fully vaccinated due to his job nature and requirements,
willingly drives people around in enclosed spaces, crosses borders, and has been conditioned by the military to accept inoculation. He certainly did not appear to fear either the virus nor the serum; was happy to talk about pharmaceuticals, big tech, globalization, division of church, and other heavy-duty topics, as well as eager to discuss music and the performing arts he has some experience in. The highlight of the drive was his response to my question about how he managed to move around during heavily enforced multiple lockdowns. In Slovakia, the license plates bear township abbreviations making it obvious at a glance that the car crossed county/district lines which was prohibited and warranted police routinely pulling people over. He said that he put the taxi sticker on the door and was, on most occasions, waved to proceed. Chuckling, I pointed out that it would make a great cover to drive a marked police car and he shared that during the lockdown he actually saw a picture of a police car with a sign saying: “For Sale – used Golf Variant. Suitable for driving after 8 PM.”
When my breathing was finally restored after an explosive laughing fit, a long moment of silence
descended upon us. We were driving on a two-lane road lined by snow covered trees of pristine forest and the scenery was so different from where we just came from that it could easily be confused with my wildest dreams. Being aware of the world’s state of affairs and the present moment at the same time felt surreal. It felt almost impossible yet it was actually our reality.
Traveling with this guy, I developed a habit of taking pictures from the car. What else can you do when you are in the passenger seat and can’t be a copilot? The driver slowed down for me and gave me a heads up about the views that we were about to approach. I knew that he would not let me do anything stupid like taking a picture of a border but I was still so tempted to do that. In the summer when we were crossing the Polish border (no control on the Polish side, but Slovaks were on it) two green uniformed men and one man in a black uniform were checking covid19 tests looking very stiff and uncomfortable. My test had expired because I did not factor in the time difference but the driver improvised. On the outside, I kept up a confident front but inside my blood was unsettled. On the way back from this winter trip I could not resist and snapped a photo at the Austrian border from afar as we were approaching control (none at Slovak side, but two young Austrian guards, basically boys, checking the covid passports entering Austria) and he reprimanded me. No pictures of the border ever! He would make for a great bodyguard and guide. I am grateful. No pics at the border. Got it!
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