In the morning, we went to work again, and the more dangerous it was, the more thoughts rushed to my relatives. At the very sight of this infernal black wasteland, the heart shrinks, skips a beat. You remember that you haven't seen anything in this world yet, you haven't even kissed a girl yet, and you feel so sorry for yourself. But you can't relax.
On October 18, I had a dream. I can't really tell now, but I remember that it was very scary. I woke up to the voice of a daycare worker shouting, "Rise!" After breakfast we went to work. As if I felt something was wrong, I didn't want to go. But, as you know, no one considered your wishes there. We were going. My comrade – Muhammad from Krasnogorsk, was walking next to me. The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow overnight, and the fatal wasteland turned white. Again, at a distance of thirty meters from each other, we began to collect ammunition. I picked up two pistols, and when I picked up the detonator of the mine, there was an explosion. Everything went dark. I looked at my hands. They were covered in blood. Staggering, I took a few steps and dropped. There was a new explosion. My family flashed before my eyes, everyone was looking at me with tears. Then everything was plunged into darkness.
Someone picked me up, put me in the car. I was getting worse and worse. We drove for a long time. On the way, the car stopped. Someone sitting next to me started swearing: "Do the Soviets have normal cars at all? Wheels fly off anywhere! Go fix it, rascal!" They stood for a long time. I'm freezing. The pain intensified. I started swearing, cursing everyone and everything, not sparing words, and cursing those who dragged me here. I saw wounded soldiers in the movies. It's all a lie. There are no such wounded people. The wounded man curses everything in the world.
In one movie, I remember that the Germans forced the prisoners to drag a jagged iron block through a minefield. We were treated the same way. After all, who can distinguish a damaged mine, grenade, or detonator from an undamaged one? The bosses initially knew that someone had to die…
Then we were transferred to another car. Now the wind was hitting us in the face. While we were getting to the hospital, I was remembering my school years: "Now I can't see their faces, I'm only eighteen, and what have I managed in life? What's the point of living now?" I asked myself. And so I would like to enjoy life, see relatives, friends, classmates, talk to them…
An operation was performed – fingers were cut off. I was conscious. They probably operated without anesthesia, I felt my fingers being cut with a crunch. I was losing a lot of blood, and the doctors were afraid that I would not survive anesthesia.
The analgesic injection didn't really work, and when they pressed something hard on my bone, I couldn't stand it and started swearing at the top of my voice in Uzbek. "My son, my son, calm down", – someone said. It just spurred me on. Why calm down now. Silence and complacency have already done their job, brought them to the last line!
Probably, blindness from birth is not as terrible for a person as for a sighted person who went blind in an instant. I want to tear to pieces all those who invented, created these mines, grenades, shells, everything—everything that cripples, kills. May they be cursed forever…
I do not remember much of it. I remember drinking compote through a hose, my mouth probably wouldn't open. My heart ached when I thought about my parents. Mom would have the hardest time of all… After getting a little stronger, I got out of bed and groped in the direction from which the cold air was blowing. I was told that our ward is on the third floor.
"Don't mention it with a vengeance", – I whispered to my family. I mentally hugged and kissed my mother. I groped for the window and put my foot on something. I found out that it was a bedside table. It fell. Someone grabbed my hands tightly:
– What are you doing, everything is still ahead, – he said, trying to calm me down.
– What is ahead? – I shouted desperately. Almost crying, he said, pleading in his voice: "Please, let me put you in your place".
From the tension, blood rushed to my head, and everything around me began to spin. I have lost consciousness. For the next two weeks, I was only put to sleep with injections.
Once, I asked the nurse who gave me an injection:
– Do I have eyes?
– Yes, yes, there is one, but we don't know about the second one yet, – she replied.
It says that it's not customary for doctors to say that. But she, at least to calm me down, did not even say that everything would be fine. I felt very hurt. Out of frustration, I started kicking. Together, they gave me an injection. I fell asleep…
I was having a dream. And every time I try to squeeze something tightly with my wounded hand. Then I wake up and remember that I have no fingers. I want to take a look and try to open my eyelids. I don't know if my eyes are open or not. I cry out. People come running to the cry. But no one can help me.
Two months have passed. It seemed as if it was morning, the doctor dropped medicine in my eyes. Suddenly, the total darkness turned into a white fog. Then the outlines of someone's face appeared. Afraid to frighten this vision, I was silent. Then, trying to figure out whether it was in a dream or in reality, I stretched out my surviving hand, touched it. A hand slid over the warm cheek.
After a while, my attending physician flew into the room, hugged me:
"Things will come right now, things will come right" – he kept repeating.
It was my second birthday. I wanted to live again.
My company commander came and said that he had received a letter from my father. "Why don't you make sure that your soldiers send letters home, – my father wrote. – If our son forgot about the house, remind him properly, punish him". I asked him not to write letters to my father.
Gradually, I began to see better, but with one eye. The face, because of gunpowder and shrapnel, has changed beyond recognition.
I will tell you that in these two months, it seemed I had lived for twenty years. I felt much older than my age.
Shortly, after I was admitted to the hospital, my friend Muhammad was also brought there. Neither of us knew that we were lying next to each other. But we were blown up at the same time. We were namesakes. Doctors cut off one of his hands, and he could not see well because of a fragment that got into his eye. Then Muhammad became my closest friend…
At the end of February, I was discharged from the hospital and bought a train ticket. A patrol detained me at the train station. They checked the documents, fooling their heads. It made me laugh. After all, what a state I was in, and they gave me the "charter".
On a crowded train, I got into conversation with a man returning from prison. When he found out what had happened to me, he chose a good place for me in the common car and took care of me all the way to Tashkent. He was a thousand times better than those patrolling the military from the train station… And now I remember him with warmth.
"CHEWED HIS EARS AND SPAT OUT…"
Usli Sagindinov, born in 1969. From Gulistan, Uzbekistan.
He served near Kandahar.
– For two months, we studied at Termez. We were trained to handle military equipment and weapons. Every day the commanders uttered high words about the honor of bearing the name "defender of the motherland." We became sappers. Our first assignment in Kandahar was mining the road the Afghans used to walk on. I could not understand why they are called dushmans, basmachs. After all, they are fighting on their own land. And we are… You won't understand anything. However, why should I bother with politics, there are big people for this.
The senior lieutenant, in addition to four of his experienced guys, took us, two young men who had just started service. It was after midnight