Almost 4,500 soldiers of Voluntary Basic Military Service took their oath over the weekend. The oath of 850 soldiers on the Fields of Grunwald was attended by Minister of National Defence Mariusz Blaszczak.

The head of the Ministry of Defence (MON) attended the festivities of the 16th Mechanised Division and the grand oath of soldiers who had completed basic training at the 1st Artillery Brigade, the 9th Armoured Cavalry Brigade, the 20th Mechanised Brigade, the 15th Anti-Aircraft Regiment and the 9th Command Battalion. During the classes, the soldiers acquired skills in the use of weapons and means of communication, survival in the field, drill and other tasks faced by a soldier of the Polish Army.

“This is important to deter an aggressor, so that Russia does not dare to invade Poland. And if we add to this the fact that every inch of Polish soil is defended by the Polish Army, we have a guarantee of the security of our homeland. This was not the case before 2015. The then government of the PO-PSL coalition assumed defence on the Vistula line, so it wanted to leave those areas east of the Vistula at the mercy of the enemy”, said the minister.

The celebration of the 16th Mechanised Division’s holiday was an opportunity to present soldiers with decorations and departmental distinctions and to thank them for their daily service.

“It is very symbolic that right here on the Fields of Grunwald we thank the soldiers of the 16th Mechanised Division for their service. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, soldiers of the Polish Army, thank you very much for defending the border”, said the head of the Ministry of Defence.

The Division’s daily routine is primarily intensive training and the deployment into service of the latest military equipment, which has gone to our soldiers as part of the modernisation of the Polish Army. For more than two years, the Division’s soldiers have also been guarding security on the Polish-Belarusian border, stopping the influx of illegal migrants.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński