How Arnold Schwarzenegger destroyed two tanks while in the army
The journey of Arnold Schwarzenegger from a kid born in an Austrian village with a population barely over 2,000 to the summit of Hollywood would have probably been the subject of a biopic by now if there was anybody even remotely physically qualified to play him on-screen.
After conquering the world of bodybuilding and attaining celebrity status, he embarked on his real dream of becoming the biggest star in the movie business. In the 1970s, to say a thickly-accented behemoth with an incredibly limited range would be capable of accomplishing such a thing sounded ludicrous, but that’s exactly what he did.
It was his physique that opened the doors, to the extent he even prioritised competitions over his mandatory military service. All Austrian men were required to fulfil one year in the armed forces after turning 18, which saw Schwarzenegger enlist in 1965, where he promptly destroyed two tanks and got into plenty of trouble.
He went AWOL during his basic training so he could attend a competition in Germany and was rewarded with a week in military prison for his insubordination, but it was clear he was never cut out for being a tank driver. Doing it once was bad enough, but Schwarzenegger conspired to somehow ruin two of the hulking vehicles.
The first time came when he forgot to apply the parking brake, causing the tank he was supposed to be in charge of manoeuvring to roll backwards and end up submerged in the stream, which required a heavy-duty towing unit to be drafted in to rescue it from the briny depths.
The second was equally as comical, with Schwarzenegger putting his foot on the gas to drive a tank straight through a wall, bursting a pipe and sending water everywhere in the process. Unsurprisingly, he revealed his commanding officer “almost got a heart attack” once he’d stopped screaming at the young upstart, not that it dented the future Terminator’s confidence in his abilities.
Despite his incidents at the helm, Schwarzenegger remained adamant that he was very good at it. “I was a fantastic tank driver,” he maintained to Men’s Health. “Tank driving is all about if you have the guts. The commander says to drive straight, and you see in front of you a lake, and on the lake is ice, and you say to yourself, ‘This couldn’t be true’. But without any question, I drove straight. And so, of course, the tank crashed into the ice. They do it to test you. What kind of balls do you have?”
His superiors probably didn’t feel the same way. However, Schwarzenegger developed such a fondness for the tank he drove – and crashed – during his military service that he purchased one for himself, which he regularly uses to pancake assorted vehicles into nothingness for no other reason than his own amusement.
