Foreign embassies can ask for additional protection from the Swiss government if required. Normally the police would act as guards around the critical sections. But since the last reform of the Swiss army in 1995, we do have some enitites doing exactly these kind of things to support and collaborate with the police: TerFüs and TerGren. I am educated as a TerFüs and am assigned to the Territorial Division 2, Kp II/59.

By the end of January the Kp II/59 and Kp IV/59 have got the order to guard at the American, the British, the Israeli and the Turkish embassy. I have been placed at the residence of the American ambassador. My shift was from 22pm to 6am. Fully equipped with bullet proof vest, Kevlar helmet and rifle (in total about 20kg material!) we've had to detect suspicious happenings inside and around the residence - observed by night shot cameras and watchdogs. I can tell you, I was so glad every morning when the order came to unload the rifle, take off the equipment and to head back to our bedrooms. When we lied down, it didn't take more the a minute until we all fell asleep.

Fortunately nothing dangerous happened. Just a friendly demonstration passed the residence, some drug addicteds had to be removed from the fence and some cars that seemed to watch what happens behind our fence. The funniest thing was the fact, that we were moving on American ground under American law because the residence belongs to the USA. So I can say that I have been over 25 times to America and back during this week :-)

We were not allowed to take pictures at the residence - which would anyway not have been very interesting. So I have put lots of pictures to this site which come from our spare time, when we have had time to socialize.