Proud leader of an armored tank.

Armored tanks are made to be driven by strong men; and I am proud to be one of them. I served in the Greek National Army for fifteen months as a second lieutenant and I feel proud.

I was the leader and the head of my tank, the name of it - Leopard 2 A6HEL. When I first stood in front of it I felt small and weak. It was more than ten feet heigh, it weighed more than seventeen tons and it had 1,479 horsepower. All that made me feel tiny and scared, but inside I felt excitement because I knew that I was going to be the leader of that big monster.  

Leopard 2 A6HEL

One day in November we had a big practice at the base and we were going to shoot with real missiles, twelve each. I caught myself being nervous and scared, because that was my first time sitting in the leader’s seat. I was the commander and I had to give the correct orders to aim and shoot the targets. In every round we had to shoot 4 targets when we were on the move; and that’s really hard to do, because it’s difficult to aim and lock the target while you are on the move. It was my turn now, me and my crew descended into the tank and we were waiting for the green light from the captain who was on the radio. While I was sitting in the tank and waiting, I could easily hear my heart beating so hard and I thought that it was going to come out of my chest. 

Here I was taking driving lessons of an older version tank.


After a few minutes we started moving and shooting targets. I had the control of the gun and I did pretty well in every round. Firing with that big gun was really noisy and I could feel the power of the acoustic wave hitting on my body. After our last round I heard from the radio - “Congratulations, Congratulations, you hit all the targets” it was our captain, I felt so proud at that time because we actually hit all the targets at once; and it felt so good to hear my captain giving me congratulation, when I knew that I did well.

That was one of the greatest moments of my life and I am not going to forget it. I want to tell these stories to my kids and my grandkids and make them feel proud about me, because serving my country is an honor for me and my family.