Patrol in the Buffer Zone
Szöveg: Lt.-Col. Imre Kovács (Cyprus) | 2011. augusztus 8. 10:03Lance Sergeant Tibor Bogdán has been doing his fourth – voluntarily undertaken – tour of duty in a peacekeeping mission abroad. After Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in March 2011 he volunteered from the garrison support platoon of the HDF Pápa Air Base to deploy with a patrol team of the Hungarian contingent of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP).
“I wanted to be a soldier ever since my childhood, and I am lucky to have found the kind of job and environment in the Hungarian Defence Forces that I had always been looking for", Lance Sergeant Bogdán told us. He followed in his brother’s footsteps when he joined the Hungarian Defence Forces, with which he has been serving in different positions for eight years.
L/Sgt. Bogdán’s family members – his common-law wife and two daughters – wait for him to return home after each mission, “For me, the most important thing is to have the continuing support of my family and to know that they have accepted my military vocation. It is reassuring to do my duty knowing that my family stands behind me and waits for me all times", L/Sgt. Bogdán told us.
Patrolling the buffer zone in the height of summer in Cyprus is no easy job, as the nearly 45C heat is really challenging. Nevertheless, patrolling is teamwork, which means that it is effective only if the patrolmen make up a good team, are familiar with the several dozens of positions and have a detailed knowledge of the zone.
“I am very grateful to my buddies in the patrol team and to my squad leader, who comes from the same HDF unit as I do. From day one they have helped me through the period of organizational socialization, and we have been forming an excellent team since then, helping each other as soldiers of a cohesive detachment. The success of a given patrolling can be credited to all of us. My platoon leader keeps supporting us to make sure that we can hold together as a tight-knit team right until the end of the mission", L/Sgt. Bogdán added.
Besides executing the military tasks, the peacekeepers must do sports in order to keep in good physical condition. Sometimes these two are linked. “As a member of the Hungarian team I participated in the UNFICYP Military Skills Competition, and I play a lot of football together with my platoon mates as well. Sometimes I enter the local running competitions too", L/Sgt. Bogdán informed us.
L/Sgt. Bogdán has further plans for the future after completing his tour of duty in Cyprus. He expects to meet a number of new challenges in the coming years. Maybe in ISAF, Afghanistan….
