Karel Peterka

"Part of the training was also border training. Everyone had to learn to say the use of the weapon by heart. When you can fire when you have to fire, when you cannot fire. If someone thinks that the border guards on the line were murderers, that they said, 'Hey, someone is coming, let's put out the cigarettes and shoot,' that's not true. They went on duty, they were loaded to the gills, and they had a Model 58 submachine gun, but before they started shooting they had to call out, 'Stop, hands up, leave cover. Hands up, drop your weapon.' A warning shot in the air, and only then, when somebody aimed at them, then they could shoot. Firing against vehicles, vessels and aircraft only if these vehicles were firing at the patrol. They were allowed to return fire to defend themselves. No firing against indistinct sounds or silhouettes. Also, there were so-called screening patrols, where a career officer or warrant officer went on what was called a snoop. Some outlaws fired their pistols at the patrol. I've heard of, I wasn't there, that a guy enlisted who had a performance class in the shooting. When the machine guns were being shot, he arranged with the gunsmith and shot his own machine gun. When a 'dude' like that sent a bee or two up the log he was hiding behind, a foot above him. And then he had to wash his shorts in the creek. That's about the border shooting. No firing when the missiles might land on foreign territory. I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of a border guard who had an intruder walk into a foreign country and say, `I couldn't shoot because if I missed it would fall on the neighbours.' I wouldn't want to be in his shoes when he was standing in front of a prosecutor. Those cases were handled by the prosecutor and it [responsibility] was always on the soldier. 
When various historical platforms say that the Border Patrol gave border guards the right to shoot at fellow citizens when they went to freedom-that was not a right. Those soldiers had a duty to prevent the border from being breached, to prevent that from going abroad. To fulfill that duty, they had that gun. They didn't have the right, but they had the duty to shoot if necessary. If you have the right, you can use it or not, that's up to you. But you have to fulfill that duty. And if you don't, there are penalties."

"The comrade said to me, 'Look, comrade, Father has a stain.' The stain was the expulsion from the National Security Corbs. But the comrade didn't tell me that, it came out later. 'And when Father has a mark, it goes to the third-degree relatives. I was sixteen at the time, I didn't have any children. But they already had a stain on their political profile."