Viktor Kurchatov, What Society Owes the Afghanistan Veterans. December 13, 1987
Original Source: Moscow News, 13 December 1987.
When they first arrive, they assemble in a big room to hear the following honest and straightforward address: ‘You have fulfilled your duty and have sustained serious wounds. Many of you have lost arms or legs. Life is going to be very difficult, but You must summon up your courage, accept the terrible truth and remember that you are citizens of this country and makers of’ your own destiny.’
These are the words that young men aged 19 or 20 who have been through Afghanistan hear at the Saki military rehabilitation sanatorium in the Crimea.
They arrive here in Saki having already undergone several operations in military hospitals. They are sore from countless Injections, and sick and tired of treatment. Doctors know the seriously wounded need to relax from time to time, and send them off for a month to breathe the salubrious steppe air and take the famous mud baths which have helped so many people before them. After the sanatorium, they usually return to the hospital for further treatment.
The rehabilitation center in Saki opened In the early 1980s when few people thought our presence in Afghanistan would last. The sanatorium therefore was built on a small scale. But soldiers with back wounds, fractured bones, multiple operations and amputations continued to arrive, and another wing had to be added.
From a purely medical point of view the conditions here are ideal.
It has the latest in laser therapy equipment, muscle electro-stimulators, and training apparatus the like of which can only be found at the Cosmonaut Training Center. The rooms are clean and comfortable, complete with color TV, video and game machines. But what about the young men themselves?
We have seen them many times on television, clad in khaki running into battle from the right, from the left, from the air. In the newspapers we have read about the wounded being decorated and returning to active service after hospital treatment. But those were stories about men ‘fit for frontline service’. What about those who lost their good health in Afghanistan, received the appropriate medals but are now Invalids’? How much do we know about them’?
In Saki people have long since got used to them. At the market a seller will sometimes give one it bunch of grapes or some apples, saying: Forget the money, lad, help yourself’.’ Shoppers standing tiredly in a queue, already fed Lip and ready to explode at the slightest pretext, will make way for them without a word.
Young radiant faces and … a wheelchair or crutches. Any normal human being feels guilty at the sight of such a heartrending, incongruous combination. It is hard to put my own feeling into words. I can only say that after an hour at the sanatorium the photographer put his camera back in his bag, sat down, covered his face with his hands and said: ‘That’s it. I can’t take any more pictures.’
Their service cards show various military specialties: sappers, Infantrymen and drivers. But the most popular item on sale at the local army supply shop is the commando vest. All of them want this ‘symbol of valor and strength I as the papers call it. The war is over for them. Why do they need this ‘symbol’ ? Perhaps it’s a game only the veterans know how to play’?
The most popular items at the nearby grocery shop are chocolates and condensed milk. Sweet-toothed like children, not quite the heroes one expects.
But not all are like that. My interview with Igor Ovsiannikov, commando platoon leader and bearer of the Order of the Red Star, began with small talk, then turned to the war. ‘Igor, you closely follow all the latest reports front Afghanistan. How do you assess tile latest events there, the policy of national l reconciliation? TV
‘To be honest, I don’t know. They show dushmans on laying down arms, but the number of seriously wounded isn’t decreasing. I’m going to have to change profession. I want to become an historian. By studying this war, I hope to understand it better.’
Yes, he can think for himself and is confident about tile future. I’m only sorry to have to write about this handsome big-hearted Russian in such I telegraphic style. The strongest impression of our first interview, however, was of’ the bleeding stumps I saw as he removed his artificial legs after a trial walk, and the artificial legs themselves which have nothing in common with the words ‘humanity’ or ‘high technology’.
‘When I look at the sophisticated artificial limbs in foreign medical journals, I wonder why our boys have to put up with worse? There’s no comparing the present times to the 1940s. The number of invalids is far lower, and the country is much richer now. But are we more merciful?’ said Captain Mikhail Babich, acting chief of the rehabilitation center
In the second half of the 1940s a wave of war invalids swept across the country, swearing in public places, begging for alms at railroad stations and fighting to death among themselves, their war medals jingling. We were poorer then, and could not help them much, so we simply removed them and their home-made carts from sight. Have they forgiven us for that ? Will the new wave forgive our formal condolences and aid going hand in hand with antiquated crutches, wheelchairs and artificial limbs?
It must be difficult to learn to Ignore long and shamelessly curious glances, especially when you are 20, but they are learning to do so. They go to dances at the neighboring sanatorium, standing it circle, all by themselves, crutches in one hand, and trying to dance to the loud, rhythmic music.
They crave a normal human life with all its temptations and disappointments. The people of Saki still remember an incident triggered off by a slightly drunk local lad calling out ‘Hey, cripple!’ to an invalid. Not maliciously, but as a statement of fact. The man he addressed, turned round, hobbled over to the offender and dealt him a fatal blow with his crutch. A casual word cost the lad his life.
‘ Many of our patients suffer from shattered nerves in addition to serious physical afflictions. They need more than good medical treatment. They need extra attention, support and love from the people around them. But unfortunately, most of these are I indifferent. What’s worse, some encourage the lads to drink,’ said Lieutenant-Colonel Gennadii Dorofeev, Deputy Chief for Political Education.
What about letters? ? Tender letters from girl friends, caring letters from parents, and cheerful letters from friends have always warmed soldiers’ hearts. Alas, the sanatorium is a ‘dead zone’ in this respect. Former girl friends have long since married: life does not stand still while soldiers are fighting and recovering from wounds. Parents are often told not to write because the Crimean holiday is only a month long. Of course, there are more expedient forms of communication, so many of the young men get telegraphed money orders, As for friends… Mostly, it’s only former patients who ever write to Saki.
Andrei Zaitsev served six months with the commandos, lost a leg, and spent 18 months in hospitals. He said: ‘The other day I got a letter from a fellow patient who’s disabled and confined to a wheelchair. He had to go from his village up to town to the commission which awards disability pensions. The first time he went the necessary doctors were absent. The second time the same thing again. He said there is no way he’d go again but how can he survive without a pension, and no legs?
‘Only a short time ago the Minister of Defense issued an order prescribing all formalities to be completed at the hospital. I have seen the order, but have not had the time to collect all the necessary papers. Without a leg, I’m not very good at running bureaucratic races, but compared to that other fellow, I’m lucky!’
There are other disquieting reports from disabled veterans. Some write that local recruiting offices often offer them the inferior 30 hp model Zaporozhets (automobile) instead of the 40 hp. Artificial limbs, however imperfect, are hard to obtain. So are jobs. The most cautious estimates show that it Is hard to subsist, even the first few months, on a disability pension.
On the way back from the sanatorium I popped into the local Komsomol committee. The secretary, a nice young man who didn’t strike me as the type to mouth formalities’ told me about a recent get-together of local ex-internationalists. That summer they had met for the first time to set up a council and a march. ‘The council helps young veterans to get flats, buy cars, and basically settle down.’
‘Do they visit the wounded?’
‘They are planning to. So far they have organized fruit parcels to be sent to the sanatorium from nearby farms.,
Marches, flats, cars, fruit… What’s the matter with us? Fellow soldiers seem to be paying their comrades off with melons and grapes…
November saw an all-Union meeting of young reservists in Ashkhabad. Most of the delegates had fought in Afghanistan. The program included shooting practice, military vehicle-driving competitions, and discussions. One issue discussed was that of disabled veterans. Unfortunately, the final document did not contain a single clause about assistance to those who need our help most.
Source: Vladimir Mezhenkov and Eva Skelley, eds., Perestroika in action: a collection of press articles and interviews (Moscow: Progress, 1988), pp. 224-229.