Hungarian Soldiers in the Alps

Year by year, the troops from the garrisons of Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Ljubljana, Bratislava, Warsaw and Budapest regularly meet to compete in different branches of sport. This year the subordinate military units of the Vienna garrison held a winter selection contest at the mountain force training base close to Judenburg, and among others, invited the troops of Budapest garrison to participate.

Located at an elevation of 1800 meters, the base is surrounded by mountain ridges on all sides, with ever-green pine-forests on the slopes. The 50-60 centimeter-deep snow covering the area during the competition enhanced the beauty of the scenery.

The HDF Support Brigade sent a six-man team to take part in the competition. It was the driver, private 1st class Bálint Varga who transported to the scene the entrants, i.e. team-leader Col. László Bartha, WO Gábor Palkovics, SFC Imre Szombathelyi, S/Sgt. András Hortoványi and L/Sgt. Zsolt Reznicsek.

Brig.-Gen. István Kun-Szabó, the commander of the HDF Support Brigade arrived at the Austrian training base as the commander of Budapest garrison. The garrison commanders were present at the base to watch the selection contest, which was one of the highlights in the program schedule of their meeting.

The soldiers entered the competition in several events by age groups. First the individual biathlon was organized, so the entrants had to cover a distance of 11.7 kilometers in a cold of minus 12 degrees Celsius. The Hungarians were represented by L/Sgt. Zsolt Reznicsek, the runner-up in the competition of foreign garrisons, and was placed 11th in the overall total score among 138 competitors.

Next day the participants woke to a temperature of minus 19 degrees Celsius, which is not so infrequent around this region in this season. On this day, the Hungarian competitors of the biathlon relay team put in a good performance that earned them the fifth placing in the international field.

The main event of the selection contest, the military patrol championship was organized on the third day. Every unit assigned to the military garrison of Vienna sent a team to this competition. In covering a distance of 8.3 kilometers, the entrants had to cope with the minus 16 degrees Celsius and the 250 meters of height difference. Similarly to the patrol championship of the Hungarian Defence Forces, beyond the running race they had to show their skills in hand-grenade throwing and marksmanship as well. The Hungarian team finally came in fifth.