Minister bestows awards for merits, contribution to defence

CTK

A human lives rescuer, WWII heroes and present military representatives were among the 40 officers whom Czech Defence Minister Lubomir Metnar (for ANO) presented with high defence decorations at the Vitkov Memorial in Prague on the occasion of the October 28 national holiday yesterday.

The decorations were awarded for exceptional contribution to the state defence, for merits and excellent fulfilment of military duties.

The awarded included Sergeant Tomas Neskodny who saved the life of a mother and her two children who were close to drowning below a weir on the Blanice River, south Bohemia, earlier this year. Neskodny obtained the Cross of Merit of the Defence Minister.

Another awarded officer was First Lieutenant David Svoboda, one of the most successful Czech pentathlon athletes who won the European championship in 2010 and the gold at the London Olympic Games in 2012.

A Cross of Merit also went to Jan Zelenka-Hajsky in memoriam. He was a founding member of the Jindra anti-Nazi resistance group that closely cooperated with the Czechoslovak paratroopers coming from Britain who attacked and fatally wounded the Nazi Deputy Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich in May 1942.

Also awarded was Jaroslav Kulisek, who took part in four peace missions of the Czech army in the past decades. As a military observer, he was taken prisoner in Georgia in February 1998, and he managed to escape.

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