View from "openair" checkpoint 210alpha - I spent up to 12hours there - click to enlarge

It was damn cold, DAMN COLD! Long underwear, long training trousers, the normal soldier trousers and special winter trousers weren't enough to protect us from -26 degrees celsius. Up to 12 hours outside during a snow storm at night. Yeah what a feeling.

From 28th november to 4th january I had my border deployment. Our unit was stationed at a "Hot Zone", the border to Slovakia, opposite of Bratislava. Our sector was 500metres wide. At daytime 8 soldiers were outside at once, during the night we sometimes got support, so we were up to 24 observing the sector. In these 6 weeks our unit caught 541 illegal immigrants, 39 on my own. My equipment was a loaded Steyr StG77 with a magazine full of HP bullets, binoculars, radio set, a huge maglite and night vision googles. Our task is to support the border police simply because we are cheaper than a full professional border police. Don't forget we HAVE TO serve. Usually we got 270 US dollar per month, at the border we got 600US dollars. You see we are doing the same work as police units for peanuts. Btw we had the same rights as the police.

The border shows you your physical as well as mental borders. 3 days duty 1 day free. If I had luck I got 4 hours sleep per day. My body felt like shit after the first week. At the first night I caught my first 3 immigrants and I can tell you it was an experience I wouldn't miss much. It was totaly dark when I arrived at checkpoint 210alpha at 5:45am. Changing of guard. My fellow-soldier complained that he spent 12hours outside without seeing one immigrant. He smoked so he put off his nightvision googles while I had them on. I told him that he can at least go home in 6 hours.

I turned around and suddenly saw 2, no 4 eyes, looking at me. They could have only heard our voices but I saw them very well, hiding behind a bush 10 metres away from us. I told my fellow-soldier to quit smoking and showed him the immigrants. He came from the left while I came from the right, we went very slowly and two metres ahead of them we lifted our guns and shouted out loud "STOP, BORDER PATROL". They jumped out of the bushes and tried to run away and suddenly there was a 3rd person 25metres away. God damn I was angry - I thought I have to be here at this damn temperatures at a damn time and now I also have to run!? At the moment the immigrants weren't humans they were animals and I was the hunter. After few seconds I caught the 2 who hid behind the bushes. My comrade caught the 3rd person. I pushed the 2 down to earth, shouted loud, lifted my gun with one hand, put off the NVGs with the other hand and took out the Maglite(torch). I looked at their faces, it was a young mother with a 4 - 6 year old child, and started to realize "MAN WTF I AM DOING - They are humans, HUMANS, who probably escaped from a country where war reigns". I felt really shabby that I could lose that much the control over myself. At least I learned much out of this situation. All further immigrants where caught with more respect. Sometimes the immigrants where really likeable and I wished I could let them pass.

As stated above I caught 39immigrants. We had really fun situation - to many to tell you all of them. Also the feared and damn cold 210alpha checkpoint became bearable after we build a tent with blankets and after a former Somalian lieutenant gave us his very warm coat as present because he was so happy that he made it to Austria alive(see second pic on the right side from above).(Sidenote: political refugees get asylum). And now some pics: