Growing up Under Communism – My Own Ideas

By the time I was seventeen and close to graduating high school, I was already a national champion in skiing and bicycle racing, junior league. I accumulated dozens of trophies. By law, the military draft was mandatory after graduating from high school, except if you managed to enroll in college or university. If you failed the very difficult admission exam, you were drafted in the army for two years. Due to my performance, I was considered a promising young talent in the bicycling racing circles.

The military had a very well funded athletic club which was in effect a professional operation. It had all the key sports and the veteran athletes were on the army’s payroll as officers while training and competing. I was pre approved for skiing and bicycling and enrolled in the fall of 1959. By 1960, I was eligible to run in the senior league (18 years).

First year at the club was great. I accumulate more national titles and by the second year of my drafting I qualified and enrolled into the Olympic team preparations for Tokyo Summer Olympics to be held in 1964. This was an excellent opportunity. I was part of the national team undergoing a special training with all expenses paid. Everything went as planned. I did better and better every day and felt comfortable that within two years I would be able to make it to the Olympics in Tokyo.

It turned out not to be case. The national team participated in various international races, mostly Europe. Our newly formed team was scheduled to participate in a relatively obscure race in Berlin, East Germany at the time. The night before our departure, at 10pm my coach informed me that I was denied a passport. I was left behind and the team left one member short. This happened in the summer of 1961. With few months still left on my military draft, I was left hanging. The team dropped me and that was the end my athletic career. It was that simple.

My athletic activity put a two year hole into my career plus one more year to recover. Passing the test and been accepted by the most prestigious technical engineering school in the country was no small feat. I was accepted with a relative low score, but the competition was 15,000 applicants for 300 openings. I was not the last, although even being the last was worth it. On the second year, 100 out of 300 dropped out by failing to pass the required tests. I was not one of them. In fact I managed to graduate five year later with a Masters Degree in Industrial Control, all due to my father’s tutoring and support.

When I was discharged from the military I returned home. My old coach asked me to join his local team and to keep racing. I asked him to find out why my passport was denied when since all I was doing was competing and representing my country. Shortly after my request, I was summoned to the local communist party headquarters for a meeting. When I showed up, there were at least 10 officials in the conference room, including my coach. They had no answer to my question about the passport. Their response was to threaten me and called me unpatriotic by dropping out of racing. This was the final blow to my racing career.

Presently, Tr Cojoc is retired in California and he is advising clients in financial matters, on how to preserve capital as well as high risk investment strategies such as trading foreign currency or FOREX.

You can find out more at     Financial Adviser