The bloodcurdling yells simultaneously came out from both mouths — the driver and the commander, as soon as they caught a figure of dushara (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), an Afghan’s fighter, targeting at them at a close range. Seemingly moving in a slow motion, everything looked unreal. In the oncoming direction, local vehicles known as burbahayki (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor) with natives, were approaching the APC, on both sides of the road heavily loaded donkeys were being dragged by their owners.
The gunner operator slowly turned the turret around. Samy, who did not even have a weapon, finally understood what his commander had yelled, turned the radio on. The dushara’s shot came exactly in the back of winch hatch. Cumulative jet pierces went through the entire APC, including its right engine. On the way, it cut off both hands of Samy. The driver, shell-shocked by a grenade explosion, has lost the ACP control. The machine rolled into a roadside ditch and stopped.
Whilst a wounded dushara was twisting on the road, another two men popped out from behind green bushes. Both of them have the launchers and grenades in barrels! Now they definitely will try for a direct fire to burn the staggered ACP! Samy spotted them from his side and compressing his own pain, screamed:
— Dusharas!… you have dusharas on the right!!! — and pointed with remains of his hands from which blood unstoppably gushed.
His gesture was understood by the commander and the gabber, thanks to the re-activated radio communication. The gunner turned the turret and with a very long salvo of coaxial machine gun, both dusharas were literally split apart. After that, he began firing from a heavy machine gun, towards the green bushes from which dusharas popped out. Blanked by this fire, the commander stuck out his head and assessed the situation.
— Get ready for the fight!!! Let’s fire at everything that moves on the hill!!! Do-o-o-o it!!!
From this shouted voice, a mechanic came to his own senses. He switched off the right engine and started the left. Roaring with only one engine, the machine jumped and reversing, crawled backwards on the road.
— Turn backwards, god damn… To the regiment!!! — the commander shouted to the mechanic and only then he understood that Samy had pointed at the mujahedeen, not with his hands but what was hanging on to his stumps in a jacket.
He jumped over the turret, and without stopping he grabbed a tourniquet hooked to a butt of his gun. White-faced, with eyes filled with superhuman pain, Samy was sitting in a puddle of his own blood.
— Samy, how can it be?! Let me twist it… Hold on, comrade… Give me more torniquet! Faster, god damn!!! But look around too, for god’s sake! I need promidol (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor)… who has it?!! Go, mechanic, run them over, mother-fuckers!
How the driver managed to start the ACP with one engine, it was a mystery, but carts of natives were running away from our wheels.
At last we reached our regiment, our medical unit… At the checkpoint we came face-to-face with our hurriedly departing on alert subdivision — on-duty. Samy was losing consciousness. During the way back he didn’t make any noise. Carried to the medical unit, he was handed to the doctors. They already were running to him from everywhere with a sound of jingling medals on their chests. The driver was the last one who came to the medical unit. He awkwardly held close to his uniform the rest of Samy’s hands. He, like everyone at war, entirely trusted doctors. Although doctors were close to God, they could not perform miracles every day. The boy’s life was rescued, he had surgery, the blood was transfused in time. Doctors did their best: he was stitched, but not his hands, unfortunately! After this, Samy was at a military hospital for some time, then he was evacuated back home to the Soviet Union where finally discharged from the army.
I remember how for a long time we had been washing off his blood from APC (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor). In that evening, sitting in our headquarters, we were overwhelmed by what had happened. With no apparent reason we shouted at a new soldier, who brought us dinner, as if he was the one to blame. Everyone wanted the see Sam’s funny face, and the Battalion Commander would sing his usual line from a Rosenbaum’ song, and all of us, rubbing our hands, could gather together for a dinner… Why everything is different?!
I have not seen Semenenko again. He had been writing to the Battalion Commander from his hospital, and then his wife has sent his regards… After his first letter, we got blatantly drunk with Gennady Vasilyevich, but it didn’t help…
At the beginning of the 90s, the Battalion Commander sent me a letter: “Sam feels very bad, help if you can”. At that time of total depression, I was in-charge of a regiment located in Belarus. I was able to organize and send several parcels with a uniform, buckwheat and cans of preserved stew to the Donbas, until one of these returned with the inscription “not residing”…
Often I catch myself thinking, what if… When I am sober, I understand that nobody knows what could happen if we would do things differently but this “if” keeps coming back again and again… bitch.
International Assistance
Nothing comes so easy for us and, at the same time, so expensive as our own… stupidity.
The idea about international assistance in Afghanistan was seriously embedded in our brains.
I have been there for six months already. I had seen various scenes and had done different things, but I would not call it “assistance”, when urgently I was ordered to come to the regiment for some meeting.
Having no guilt, I went there with an easy heart, even peaceful, I would say, and took notice of all things along the way.
For a short break we stopped in a kishlak (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor). A little girl, around eight years old, in a dress and colorful panties was forming a kind of pancake from a mixture of cow shit and straw, and stacking them on the sunny side of a duval (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor). A toddler, next to her, was crawling towards a small spring that was, in fact, sewerage collected from a human waste in the yard. The girl fetched some water with her hand from this ditch and gave it to the kid for drinking from her palms. I almost puked.
I turned my back. In this direction, I spotted a Russian truck ZIL-130 that was firmly stuck in the green fields. If “Ford” was there, I could not care less, but in this situation, it was like meeting a relative. The truck was full of stones and its owner — a native Afghani of uncertain age — was running around the truck, clapping on his butt in desperation. In my mind I even felt sorry for this poor fellow, but the road was open, and two armored troop carriers-70 began moving forward.
After spending four hours in the regiment, I was coming back the same way. Near the same kishlak, I saw that this ZIL-130 was still in the same place, only stones were unloaded. I do not know what had possessed me, perhaps, an opportunity to provide international assistance, but I decided to get involved and rescue this ZIL.
The first of the ATAs (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), moved into the field and unexpectedly drowned into dense mud to its belly. All eight wheels scattered black swills, but it was pointless — the vehicle was being sucked into the mud more deeply. This was the situation that we apparently called “to be in deep shit”.
A crowd started gathering together around us. Mainly it was the little ones who came from all nearby places. Of course, this was a free entertainment! Trying to keep a cool face, I quietly ordered to my driver to unwind the winch, and we easily pulled out the ZIL from the mud. The “native” with his constantly repeated “tashakur” (see “Terminology and Glossary” — Editor) was very happy, but, seems to me, wanted to disappear without payment to us. I said to him something like “you won’t get away with only tashakur”, and stopped him.