His wounds have already healed, but after amputation of the hands, the postoperative swelling has not yet come down. Little can be done to help this situation — only waiting and continuing all medical procedures in order to get ready for his prosthetic preparation.
Unfortunately, Vitya’s contused head does not give a break to himself and also to the whole ward.
Vitya did not dodge a grenade explosion. Ambushed somewhere in Panjshir together with his unit, he courageously covered the rest of his group by focusing the enemy’s fire to himself. This happened suddenly; and thanks to his immediate reaction, Vitya saved many lives as well as took the lives from others.
The explosion from the grenade interrupted Vitya’s solo performance. But the doukh (a military slang for identifying enemies during the war in Afghanistan — Editor) did not kill him. Not reaching its target, the reactive grenade fell into a stone mound next to Vitay. The blast destroyed everything: Vitya’s submachine gun, his right shoulder and head; his right eye broken open from a splinter. His hands were torn off, his elbows were also gone. This flash from the explosion together with a pile of rubble stood up like a wall in front of Vitya’s eyes, and sure enough mixed all thoughts in his head that affected him for the rest of his life.
We understand him. To express or splash our emotions can be a huge relief, and each of us has the right to do so, in your own individual way.I found my way. This way is old enough, simple and cheap. It costs as much as the price of a ball pen together with a pupil’s notebook. What you have to do is to remember how to write the letters. Seems to me, this way is more effective for describing any unpleasant experiences and relieving your emotion compared to crying on somebody’s shoulder in the ward. Also by writing down events, you have a chance to interconnect and analyze these events again; this is why for me, writing a dairy became more effective. However, I can guess, that my colleagues in the ward, may have a different opinion on this matter.
My notes reflect a horror of my nightmares, my life’s thoughts, and it describes events that have occurred in our ward. My notes help me. I was writing these notes at night. In the morning I re-read them and get horrified: if this is happening in my head, then what is going on in the head of Vitya?
Today Sanych got a visit from his wife. I did not think that this “Rambo” of Airborne Forces can be such a clown.
Oleg Timofeevich, a deputy head of the hospital’s third department, entered our ward together with the nice young woman who had tearful eyes. As soon as Sanych saw these guests, he jumped out of the bed and rushed around, searching for a chair, overturning everything in his path.
He has the Elizarov’s apparatus that was fastened to him due to a complex fracture of his leg — it was the consequences of a fragmentation wound. This wound Sanych received whilst he was going to have a cigarette; he stood behind the armor of the ALV (Amphibious Landing Vehicle — Editor) in the bush somewhere in Charikarskaya. As soon as he made the first puff, the grenade launcher fired a shot behind him. The reactive grenade rammed the cannon of the ALV and ricocheted towards his leg — it is a usual sequences in this war. But, can you imagine, wishing to save his wife’s heartbreak, Sanych, whilst he was at the hospital in Bagram, wrote to her saying that he fell ill with cholera!? He warned her that his treatment would take a couple of months, and then he would be at home for a well-deserved sick leave. His poor wife became confused from a combination of her own feelings — a sadness regarding the serious illness and the joy to see her husband on his sick leave. So, this faithful woman began to make inquiries about the severity of her husband’s illness; and when the picture of all consequences of her husband’s disease was clearly defined, she sent a letter-instruction to the hospital in Bagram.
We can give a credit to the efficiency and sensitivity of the medical staff from the hospital in Bagram, who informed the agitated wife that her husband admitted in the Clinical Military Hospital, building number 442, on Suvorov Avenue at Leningrad.
The experienced officer’s wives, who were the members of a women’s committee of the division from where Sanych was sent to the “special mission”, learned that he was transferred on a plane from Tashkent to Leningrad together with a group of seriously wounded soldiers. Nobody made any enquiries about the diagnosis — they believed Sanych.
In accordance with the code of faithfulness for a woman whose husband at war, his wife left her children at home and rushed to Leningrad (nowadays is St Petersburg — Editor) to save her husband from cholera. At the hospital, the unfortunate woman was informed that her husband was placed into the third department of the hospital, which has purulent surgery patients. Now, can you imagine what she was feeling during these terrible minutes after learning where her husband was? Instead of a dying husband, she was on the way to meet a healthy looking fellow who was rushing around the ward with some kind of vulgar fracture in his leg?
It was a strange scene: two of us, legless, are in the beds, Lesha as a one huge plaster doll with a talkative head on the top; a gaunt Boris, with his transparent skin, holding the crutches, sits on a bed; an emotionally waiving Vitya with his circumcised hands; a stern face of Oleg Timofeyevich is somewhere in the background with a tearful wife of Sanych, and Sanych himself runs towards her crashing everything on the way.
The scene was so emotionally heavy, that the dearest guest suddenly fired off the most famous word which will be not allowed in books, but will be written on fences. No doubt, it is better to give free rein for your emotions with no witnesses around; otherwise your reputation will be damaged forever. But there is some time when you simply could not do in any other way.
The first week after the celebration of New Year has passed. Sanych was discharged to the hospital closest to his residence with a parole of honour to return the Ilizarov’s apparatus later. He went home with his wife before the holidays. His bed was given to another guy from the local construction battalion. He is from Uzbekistani, and his name is Shiraz.
What had happen to him was unreal. During the break, Shiraz sat on the non-working sawmill and freely swinged his feet until one of them accidentally touched the switch and turned the machine on. I can hardly comprehend how it occurred (perhaps somebody helped him with this machine), but the fact is — his Muslim ass got unlucky, and his rotten fate put a tremendous cross below his waist, outlining the lower part of his body. In the hospital, this veteran from a building battalion — let’s to be honest — did not improve his luck: the graduate from the Baku Combined Arms Command School, Lieutenant Boris, personally got interested in Shiraz and initiated the voluntary training for him to obey commands.
The transparency of Boris’ skin has already gone, leaving the yellowness and the unhealthy sparkling of his large black eyes for the most difficult days. Boris painfully goes through all that has happened to him; and Shiraz became just the lightning rod, through which the young officer’s self-esteem can be released due to a lack of time to train his own personnel. But as we say, diamonds cut diamonds.
The demeanour “I do not understand Russian” of the first year of service, has changed to “I’m not doing the job, because I have been around” during the second year of service in the construction battalion. This is why, Boris included in his educational program, tailored for Shiraz, almost everything, with a field training exception, of course; for some reasons, absence of this important component in crafting a real soldier was very upsetting for Boris. Unfortunately, after many futile drills that were applied to Shiraz, our lieutenant eventually concluded that his failure in a military service was a logic consequence.