“It happened at the daybreak. This sport aircraft would land, we called it the Stork (Čáp). It took off and waved its wings. It landed and: there he is. So the ambulance came and the company commander said: 'Four men'. I was one of them, we had to pick him up. This was the first time I saw a dead friend of mine. Such a man, 179 or 180 centimeters tall, weighing about 75 kilos, looked so small in a tarpaulin. Of course, we had been moved by that. And the impact it had on me lasts till today in a way. And after that, there was this other feeling: fear of parachute jumping. And of course, our commanders, major Miroslav Šedina at that time, decided that this fear could be overcome only if everyone would do another jump before he would leave the unit. And it has to be said that we said goodbye to Zidor at the courtyard and all the paratroopers had tears in their eyes. As a paratrooper still has a capacity to feel something, even after such a demanding training.”
“Some of the people from our unit, those professional soldiers, and especially those from the political group, began to change their stance on the events of 1968. And they would change it in such a way that it had been a mistake, that we shouldn´t have been behaving like that. And as the political screening began after 1970, which brought political persecution to some of the people, like Šedina, Košan, Dufek and others, I had already left the army. The reason was that I realised that I had no future in the army, that I would be fired anyway, as I openly condemned the occupation.”
“Košan almost didn´t say a word. And when Šedina said that he wouldn´t let them in the barracks, the commander lost his temper, he got in a jeep and the car would reverse. And Šedina was coming back with Košan. And there was this man with a machine-gun accompanying the Soviet officer all the time. We had no weapons except our knives. And with the Soviet officer there was this first lieutenant who was in command of an armored vehicle they brought to threaten us. And he would jump down. His high boots were well-polished. And we treated each other as soldiers. Maybe civilians wouldn´t understand. He came to me and we exchanged greetings, I had a lower rank. I looked him in the eye and he held out his hand to me. And then came this moment of betrayal. As I didn´t shake his hand. I just said to him: 'Нет, невозможно' (No, not possible).”
"After the Soviets came, there had been this wild commotion in front of the barracks. And it went on till the 22nd, it didn´t all happen on the 21st. And at that time I witnessed – but I would save that for later – why there was lieutenant colonel Miroslav Šedina at our unit, who handed over the command to lieutenant Vladimír Košan maybe year before that. Why he had been in charge of the negotiations with that commandeer? I stood just next to them as it had happened in front of the gate. Our lieutenant colonel Šedina spoke Russian in quite a deliberate way. And the Soviet officer was getting angry, insisting that he should let him into the barracks. And that gave rise to that story – it´s even in that memoirs of yours – that we refused to give Soviets water. But that was not the case. They would get it from elsewhere, but as a soldier, Šedina knew that he couldn´t let Soviets into the barracks as they had been setting up some kind of defense there. Soviets didn´t need water, they needed to get in.”
Pavel Chmelík was born on April 24th 1942 in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. His father was an Austrian born in Vienna who came to Czechoslovakia in 1933 and later became a citizen of Czechoslovakia. Pavel´s mother, who came from a ‚partly-Jewish‘ family, did a blue-collar job at a textile factory. Pavel grew up in a village of Huntířov in Trutnov region, where his father had a carpentry shop. In 1951, his father refused to transfer his business under the communal administration. After that, he had been assigned as a blue-collar worked at coal mines in Ostrava. After he was gravely injured in a mining accident, his father came back home, working as a school caretaker and a maintenance man. After finishing elementary school, Pavel began to study at a riding school in Fořt near the town of Vrchlabí. Before starting his compulsory military service, he did a one-year conscript course at Svazarm. In September 1961, he joined up an elite army unit – the 7th Special Operations Airborne Regiment – stationed in Holešov. After completing the training, he joined the Czechoslovak People´s Army as a staff sergeant and had been serving as a deep reconnaissance unit commander till 1969, leaving the army after his commitment ended. Still in Holešov, he witnessed the August 1968 invasion. As the Czechoslovak and Soviet commanders met for the first time, he was present as a bodyguard to the commander of troops guarding the gate of the barracks. After leaving the army, he had been doing a blue-collar job at the Red October (Rudý Říjen) Plant in Gottwaldov for some time. In 1970, he started to study law at the Charles University (Karlova Universita) and after that he had been serving as a district military procurator, holding the position till 1993. After leaving the justice system, he got involved business and human resources management. Today, as a 7th Special Operations Airborne Regiment ex-serviceman, he has been a shooting instructor at the Zlín Sport Shooting Club in Vršava. He had been a long-time chairman of the Holešov and Zlín Paratrooper Ex-Servicemen Club. In 2019, he has been living in Zlín.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
