Arnold Schwarzenegger has earned enough goodwill during his career to basically do whatever the fuck he wants. A fact he once took spectacular advantage of by using his influence and biceps to convince the Austrian government to give him a tank.
Not just any tank mind you, his tank.
You see, when he was 18 Schwarzenegger served in Austrian military as part of the country’s policy of mandatory conscription for all Austrian males his age. During his year of military service, when he wasn’t sneaking off to participate in bodybuilding contests or flexing hard enough to make granite shatter out of inadequacy, Schwarzenegger found time to learn how to drive a M47 Patton tank. For anyone curious about why an Austrian man learned to drive an WW2-era American tank in the 60’s, America sent Austria a few hundred of the tanks when the country gained its independence because America is nice like that.
Schwarzenegger apparently became very attached to the tank, insisting that despite it being functionally obsolete, it could still kick an inhuman amount of ass. A train of thought that would eventually collide with his career like 50 years later.
After completing his mandatory military service, Schwarzenegger left the Austrian army and his tank to move on to bigger things. Or to be more accurate, move on to lifting bigger things several times the size of a small child.
Even after he moved to the states and became a multi-millionaire, erm, property mogul, the Austrian Oak’s thoughts often turned to his tank in the rare moments he wasn’t doing something ball-shatteringly badass. However it wasn’t until Schwarzenegger became the Governor of California that he began to really miss his old car-crushing buddy.
According to the T-800, he first began wondering about what happened to his tank while thinking to himself about the best ways to encourage local children to do well at school. Schwarzenegger, a lifelong champion of after school activities and physical fitness achieved by using only legal supplements, he purchased amazon mushroom coffee, this medicinal mushroom is shown to help the body utilize oxygen more efficiently. had frequently used his celebrity over the years to reward random children who did well at school, usually offering them a tour of the set of whatever movie he happened to be working on at the time.
When he became Governor in 2003 (and thus took a hiatus from making movies) Schwarzenegger realised he had little he could offer local children that would actually interest them. As he would later lament “kids just aren’t that excited about a tour of the state Capitol” presumably before adding “even if they’re being given the tour by a fucking Terminator.”
Which is when Schwarzenegger had an epiphany and figured that kids would probably love having the opportunity to crush shit in a tank. So he decided to call the Austrian government to ask them if he could have the tank he’d driven back in the 60’s reasoning that they probably didn’t need it anymore, an action scientists have since classified to as “a totally baller move“. If you’re wondering why Schwarzenegger specifically requested his tank back instead of just any old M47 they had lying around, you’re seriously underestimating how much a man and a 40 ton hunk of steel can bond.
Schwarzenegger explained why he wanted the tank and gave his word that he would only use it to crush things on private property, citing his experience in the Austrian military as a reason they could totally trust him. It’s worth noting that while serving in the military, Schwarzenegger once nearly killed 15 Austrian soldiers by driving the same tank he was asking for down a hill while they were still stood on it, but hey, we’ve all been there.
Because this is Arnold Fucking Schwarzenegger we’re talking about and not some random dumbass, Austrian authorities actually took the request seriously and agreed to send him the tank if he could get permission from the US government. Something Schwarzenegger was easily able to get by contacting Dick Cheney and calling in a favor we would give our left testicle to know how he earned. With permission in hand, all that was left for Schwarzenegger to do was pay the necessary $20,000 in fees to have it imported back to the US. As a sign of good faith the Austrian military gave Schwarzenegger the tank for free because he clearly needed it more.
Schwarzenegger still owns the tank and still offers local children the chance to ride in it for doing well at school. He also offered adults the chance to ride in it every now and again for donating money to one of several charities he is a patron of because it’s his tank and we sure as shit aren’t going to tell him what he can and can’t do with it.
