______________________________
The above image from a parade on 7 November 2012 in Moscow to mark the 71st anniversary of the Parade for Red October in 1941… where the soldiers went from the parade straight to the fighting on the outskirts of the city.
Yet, never forget… soldiers aren’t automatons… they’re human beings with real lives and real emotions. As a friend of mine wrote:
I’ve seen it many times… men would be fighting for their life, but they held their fire so as not to hit a poor animal. Innocence, I suppose, kids and puppies.
If that doesn’t tell you that soldiers aren’t brutes, I don’t know what to tell you. Mark this well… soldiers are usually not warmongers… they know the cost of it all. They’ve buried one too many of their friends…
******
I once had a comrade,
you won’t find a better one.
The drum was rolling for battle,
he was marching by my side
in the same pace and stride.
A bullet flew towards us
meant for you or for me?
It did tear him away,
he lies at my feet
like he was a part of me.
He wants to reach his hand to me,
while I’m just reloading my gun.
“Can’t give you my hand for now,
you rest in eternal life,
My good comrade!”
_______________________
I had a comrade…
Я был товарищ…
Ich hatte einen Kameraden…
J’avais un camarade…
******
Zhuravli… the White Cranes… “Perhaps, it’s there for me?”
It seems to me that sometimes that soldiers
Who didn’t come home from blood-soaked battlefields,
Weren’t laid to rest in the earth,
But turned into white cranes…
That ever since that time long ago
They have been flying, calling,
Maybe that’s why we often, and sadly,
Fall silent, staring into the sky!
The tired flock flies and flies up in the sky,
It flies in the fog, as the day dies,
In this formation, there’s a space;
Maybe, it’s a place for me.
The day will come when I’ll also drift
With the flock of the cranes in the blue-grey haze,
Calling from the sky, in the bird’s language,
The names of you I’ve left on earth.
It seems to me sometimes that soldiers
Who didn’t come home from blood-soaked battlefields,
Weren’t laid to rest in the earth,
But turned into white cranes…
______________________________
Yo tenía un camarada…
Minulla oli toveri…
Είχα ένα σύντροφο…
Tôi đã có một đồng chí…
No matter what tongue, no matter what uniform… it hurts…
BMD
4 February 2013. Our Great Russian Motherland… The Celebration of the Victory at Stalingrad
Tags: Battle of Stalingrad, Eastern Front (World War II), European Theatre of World War II, fireworks, Great Patriotic War, Mamayev Kurgan, Mother Motherland, Nazi, patriotic, patriotism, political commentary, politics, Red Army, RKKA, Russia, Russian, Russian history, Soviet Union, Stalingrad, Stalingrad Battle, USSR, Victory Banner, Volgograd, Volgograd Oblast, VOV, Wehrmacht, Workers and Peasants Red Army, World War II, world war two
______________________________
Fireworks at the site of the Родина-мать зовёт (Rodina Mat Zovyot: The Mother-Motherland Calls) monument on Mamayev Kurgan in the Hero City of Volgograd. Russia hasn’t forgotten the great victory of Stalingrad… from that point forward, the Red Army was on the counterattack. This was the highwater mark of the Fascist advance. The Red Army didn’t rest until it planted the Victory Banner on the Reichstag. The world is a better place because of the Great Victory… never forget that.
BMD