My one and only time at a military vehicle festival

Some experiences are meant to never be repeated

I am generally of the opinion to try out things at least once. Experiences, situations, activities, you name it. I feel that if I do that, I know if I truly like or dislike something and I will be less likely judgmental about it, with no solid experiential base.

This is why I tried to go deep diving when I got the possibility, even though I felt discomfort about it. Now I know it’s not for me. I collected enough data to make up my mind about it.

Sometimes, there are situational and emotional circumstances where we might do and participate in things we would otherwise never do, and I mean NEVER ever! I had one of such situations ca. four years ago.

I was in a relationship and my partner back then was very interested in cars, offroad cars as well as military vehicles. A hobby and job I truly could not find any connection to, as for me a car is just a tool to get from A to B. The only thing I want from a car is to be safe, and have four-wheel-drive, so I can handle the snowy conditions here ;-).

In the summer four years ago, my former partner told me about this military vehicle festival in Poland to which he usually travels to, together with some friends, meeting other friends with the same hobby in Poland. He asked me if I want to join and we made the plan that after the festival we would further travel south to visit my family, as I was born in Poland.

I shared my discomfort about this type of festival with him and I kept my option open to just leave earlier and go to my family myself if it became too much for me. We agreed to that plan.

The travel there was fun, I love road trips and we planned to be in a big tent, with proper camping beds, so I was looking forward to that experience.

I cannot completely recollect everything anymore, the sequence of situations and moments but I do remember feeling discomfort as soon as we arrived at the festival premises. I have never directly experienced war and I am endlessly grateful for that. It is something I highly condemn, just like any other type of violence and atrocity towards human beings. The only experience of war I have had is through movies.

And there I was, suddenly standing in the middle of a festival, surrounded by people in military clothes, fake weapons, or antiqued dysfunctional old weapons, military vehicles all around, mopeds, hybrid amphibious vehicles, tents from back then, old airplanes, tanks, other armored vehicles, canons and much more.

And people with happy faces, smiling, enjoying the sun, the adventure of being at a festival, enjoying their hobby, meeting with friends, exchanging stories, while dressed up like veterans, soldiers or any other military-war-related personality.

For me and my brain, all that was a complete and utter mismatch, it didn’t fit at all, how surreal…