24. October 2014 10:52
Once, when we were driving together in an armoured car, we were shot at. I threw myself over him but luckily the bullet went into the hatch. He'd been sitting with his back to the sniper and hadn't seen him. When we got back he wrote to his wife about me. He didn't get any letters from home for two months after that.
I love shooting. I enjoy emptying a whole magazine at a single burst - it makes me feel good. Once I killed a muj. We'd gone into the hills to get some fresh air and make love. I heard a noise from behind a rock. I was so scared it was like an electric shock. I fired a burst, then went to look and saw this strong, goodlooking bloke lying there. 'You can come with us on recce patrol!' the lads said. That was the highest compliment they knew and I was as pleased as Punch. They also liked the fact that I didn't loot the body, except for the gun. On the way back, though, they kept an eye on me, because I started retching and vomiting. But I felt OK. When I got home I went to the fridge and ate as much as I'd normally get through in a week. Then I broke down. They gave me a bottle of vodka - which I drank down without getting drunk - and realised with horror that if I hadn't shot straight my mother would have been sent a '200'.
I wanted to be in a war, but not like this one. Heroic World War II, that's what I wanted.
Where did all the hatred come from? There's a simple answer to that. They killed your mate. You'd shared a bowl of chow, and there he was, lying next to you, burnt to a cinder. So you shot back like crazy. We stopped thinking about the big questions, like who started it all and who was to blame? That reminds me of our favourite joke on the subject. Question to Radio Armenia:"" 'What is the definition of politics?' Radio Armenia replies: 'Have you heard a mosquito piss? That's the definition, except politics is even thinner.'
Excerpt from the book Zinky Boys, Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War
Translated from the Russian by Julia and Robin Whitby