The TV, oddly enough, is sometimes capable of, if not pushing on a clever thought, then at least pulling something out of the nooks of memory. I switched it on once, and there they were showing the sappers and their dog. More than a hundred explosive devices on the account of this labrador with a smart face. I won't even count how many lives.
And I remembered a crying soldier who carried a bloody German Shepherd in his arms and repeated only one word. "125th, 125th, 125th …" It turned out that this boy-sapper was considered simply the god of sappers. He found the most ingenious bookmarks and land mines. And he carried his fighting friend-dog. The 125th mine was the last for the dog. The gravel on the road played a cruel joke.
I don't know what the soldier's name was. I don't know what the dog's name was. And tell me then, I would hardly remember, because after a successful exit I myself waited on a stretcher for my turn to load. I remember tears and lifeless paws hanging down. And blood. The blood of the dog that replaced our blood.
I have always been amazed by the fact that with the most modern means of finding mines and other prohibited substances, no one gives up dogs. Well, it does not fit into my head that scientists cannot surpass an ordinary animal, which, in general, is not adapted to military affairs. A dog's nose as an unsurpassed work of nature …
I looked at the screen and saw the usual sapper service from the point of view of combat work. Everyday and without any fanfare, the group commander showed homemade landmines that had just been removed at the Aleppo water pumping station. Nearby lay "charged" plastic bottles, cuttings from pipes, zinc from ammunition with plastid plates covered with spent cartridges. And a dog lying in the background, tired to the point of disgrace.
I will not write the common truths about the biology of a dog. Probably every reader knows that the smell for them is tens of thousands of times sharper. From the point of view of our pets, we are always "suffering from rhinitis." Experts talk about a drop of alcohol in 20 million cubic meters of air as a possible scent of this sapper. It is also no secret that it is not difficult for a dog to understand the "cacophony" of smells. For some reason, even when mixed, they can give off the smell they need.
I won't even describe the "stereosoner". Dogs can sniff with both nostrils at the same time, but in different ways. They know how to match the smell. That's why they are dogs. Our assistants.
Events in Syria have not left the pages of the world and Russian press for quite a long period of time. We see pilots striking terrorist positions. We see scouts, snipers, medics. But we hardly see those who follow. Those who risk no less. Those for whom the war is not some time period of service, but a constant, uninterrupted state of life. Regardless of the place of service. Regardless of the time of service. Almost irrespective of even the position. Probably, the sapper generals themselves do not clear explosives. But the officers are clearing mines. And even soldiers are often kicked out in the most serious cases. Even the colonels. I saw it myself.
When in 1924 during the course "Shot" they began to train sapper dogs, more precisely, to conduct experiments on the use of dogs in military affairs, hardly anyone would have thought that very soon these dogs would save thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of lives. Once, in deep antiquity for most readers, 70 years ago, dogs discovered 4 million mines. Million !!! And besides that, other dogs saved almost 700,000 lives of Soviet soldiers. Why, at the cost of their lives, the dogs destroyed more than 300 German tanks …
I served in other troops. Honestly, when I was young, I thought that our vest gave me the right to look at the sappers as a construction battalion. Rear servicemen … We are fighting, and they are … But after the very first "mess" in my life I understood a simple military truth. Intelligence showered with awards for the most "I can not". Lives a little, but heroes a priori. And sappers are the ants of war. I'm not the first to go to the front. The first is a simple sapper. He tears the wire. He removes the mines. He is the first to come under fire when "she" comes in.
I've seen sapper dogs. I saw young, under thirty, company sappers who did not fight. They are not fighters at all. They were just shooting fascist mines. They simply undermined what for some reason had not been blown up during the shooting. They dragged civil war "bombs" from the bottom of the river …
Damn, no vests. No berets. Without a bunch of badges for military merit … They even never jumped with a parachute … Dog breeders, Christmas trees, sticks. Warriors …
The sappers, I think I can draw this conclusion, are the most daring soldiers of the war. It is the bold ones. Because we go into battle first. We do not know the outcome of the battle. We know what we need … That's all. The infantry goes into battle because "only as long as the infantry Vanka's eggs are not hovering over the enemy's trench," the line has not been taken. Who and how much perishes is not a question. Fate. Or a chest in crosses, or a head in the bushes.
And then the sappers come. They go one on one. Every time in hand-to-hand combat with death. No bullets around. No shell explosions. They go to war in silence. And they die in silence. Just like their dogs.
I have never written about sappers. I have never written about sapper dogs. I am getting better.
The war in Syria, like any war, will end. Everyone will get theirs. Someone orders and medals. Someone just has a peaceful life. And someone continues the war for many years. How much rubbish remains in the ground after the war is not worth telling, probably.
We think of doctors only when some bastard commits a war crime and hits the hospital. We think of military engineers when we need to cross the river. We remember electronic warfare when "these goats" are very nicely laying bombs on positions.
By the way, I will also ask why our girls-nurses and the pediatrician professor were a kilometer from the front line. A kilometer away! Where not only a high-precision or long-range one flies, but also a simple mine from an 82-mm mortar.
Honestly, I wanted to talk about the war. I would like you to understand what it is, war. They just understood why the soldiers and officers would not forgive the death of the girls-nurses. We understood why any soldier in Syria is a hero. Why even a dog that is not at all heroic should be respected. It was just that there were not only heroes. There are heroes today - here they are. These simple, often simply confused boys in front of a microphone or camera. Boys who did not disgrace their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers.
