I was born in the 60s and remember how often, when I walked along Titov Street from school number 20 in the city of Rovno in Ukraine, I heard the sounds of an orchestra playing a funeral march (I found the time when veterans of the Great Patriotic War were buried, stopping the movement of public transport, when his fellow soldiers slowly carried scarlet pads with orders and medals in front of the coffin of a soldier or general) we, schoolchildren, looked at these orders and naively counted them in a childish way - a separate order on a pillow, then medals of 4-5 pieces at once and I, a schoolboy, stupidly thought that since there are many orders, then that "uncle" is more heroic! Now, when I am already over 50, I have long understood and realized that they are all heroes, like my father, with medals "For Courage", "For Military Merit" and "For the capture of Berlin." Then, when the ashes of memory were still pounding in the hearts of all Soviet people, all those who won, survived in hunger and cold, lacking sleep and languishing for 16-18 hours in the shops of factories and factories, in the fields and plots, in cockpits and barracks, hospitals and depot.
I remember being in the sixth grade, I asked my father, a front-line communications officer: "Dad, how was it during the war?" And he told me, slowly and as if reluctantly - difficult, son, very difficult! So, I can't explain it to you even now! But know that it was very scary when 18 year old guys like you were dying nearby! And everyone wanted to survive, wanted a beautiful wife and kids, a home and happiness, but they fell and died, loudly shouting "mom!" And you, running into the attack and thinking: “Lord! Bless and save!" And the more you scream with fear, like a goat! At that time, as a city dweller, I thought, how does a goat scream?
I also asked my grandmother, as a labor veteran, how was it in the rear? And my grandmother, who worked for five years at a factory during the war in Turkmenistan and sewed jackets and mittens for the front, answered that she constantly wanted to sleep and eat! Sleep and eat!
Father did not like to talk and remember about the war, you see, he had enough emotions for his whole life! He told how they shot in front of the regiment of believers from the Crimea, who refused to take up arms, how soldiers drowned while crossing the Vistula and were pushed away from boats with oars by other soldiers so as not to drown, told how old servicemen were sent to the castle for wine in the cellars and as already in Berlin, in 1945, near the avenue, where snipers were shooting at everything, he had to stretch a reel with a cable for communication and before his eyes three signalmen were killed, and it was his turn and how he was shaking with fear and wanted to live madly! But then an old Moldavian soldier stepped forward and said: "Don't kill the boy, I'll drag!" He took out cassettes with his own soil and said that she would save him! How he ran and the bullets clicked around, and he ran "like an elephant", and the bullets clicked and clicked around, how he ran and how they re-established the connection, and how much his father wanted his life! How I tried to find him the next day, and how for many years he has been cursing himself that he had not found, in order to say thank you, to an old soldier from Moldova! How everyone drank and shouted with joy that the damned war was over!
Dad died in 2011 in September, I look at his photo, where he is wearing orders and medals, looking at me and smiling! He knows that I, too, will defend my homeland, from invaders, from all sorts of bastards! I am for the fact that even now in the cities and regions of Russia, stopping public transport, they slowly and solemnly buried the veterans of the Great Patriotic War, and reddened on the scarlet cushions the orders and medals of the heroes, to whom we owe the grave of our lives, for our life and for our happiness !!! Do not grumble the people of Russia, they bury Heroes !!!
