Arnold Schwarzenegger

"My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. They didn't want to create an individual. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform, and whose will could not be broken. Therefore, I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'you can't do this,' I said, 'this is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody."
Early adulthood
Schwarzenegger served in the Austrian army in 1965 to fulfill the one year service required at the time all 18-year-old Austrian males. He won the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965. Schwarzenegger went AWOL during basic training so he could take part in the competition and spent a week in an army jail: "Participating in the competition meant so much to me that I didn't carefully think through the consequences." He won another bodybuilding contest in Graz, at Steirer H Hotel (where he had placed second). He was voted best built man Europe, which made him famous.