Nah, from what he told me the service pistol was an inaccurate POS, a pain to clean (which one would have to do often) and the G36 rifle is made in large parts (e.g. the stock) from polymer/plastic meaning they were forbidden from ever using the weapon body itself as a weapon because otherwise it would splinter and break.

The AK my father and grandfather used in the NVA instead was a real wartime weapon, rugged, dependable and able to be produced in mass quantities relatively cheaply. The G36 instead is apparently expensive, fragile and not that accurate, ie. more of a showpiece.