Driving a Tank and Shooting Machine Guns Near Mankato!

Today is Veterans Day. Every day, I am thankful for the freedom I enjoy in this great country of ours. We can never thank you enough for your sacrifices, honor and duty.

If you've seen the movie "Fury', with Brad Pitt, you've seen what life was like to be part of a tank crew in World War II. I've often wondered what it would be like to go back in time and do that.

Well, the closest you can come to that experience is at a place just north of Mankato called "Drive A Tank". It's acres and acres of fun for a war enthusiast. There are many different tanks from a Sherman tank (that is the twin of the tank in Fury), to Russian and British tanks.

My girlfriend's son Brendan, had a 'district day' last week in school, so we decided to road trip there to experience tank driving and share those with you.

In order to drive a tank, you had to pull back on a 'stick' to brake the side you wanted to go in the direction of.  it has a gas pedal, a shifter to forward or backwards and the 2 steering sticks.  The course is an 1/8 of a mile, with plenty of turns and a water hole.

When you go to Drive A Tank, you can also have the option to crush a car.  Check out the video and you'll see a Volvo 850 being crushed.  And they say they have the best safety ratings!  HA!  It was nothing against a tank.

There's also an indoor shooting range that has a variety of machine guns, pistols and long rifles.   We got a chance to shoot some pistols and an M-4 machine gun, PLUS drive a British SPG tank. (The SPG stands for self propelled gun).

The pistols you see in the video are .50 caliber pistols.  One is a Gold Plated Eagle Semi-Automatic and the other is the largest handgun you can legally own in the world, the Smith & Wesson .500.  It's a 50 caliber handgun with some kick!

My deepest respect goes out to all of the veterans who spent time in a tank during wartime.  There's very limited room in tanks and most of the guys who were part of a tank crew were smaller guys.

If you're interested in more, check it out for yourself!  - Alan