On the way, the car failed, we were transferred to the boat. It was cold. I seemed to have lost a lot of blood because my whole body was chilling. It was driving a long time. The pain became unbearable, and it seemed as if the whole world was running out of pain. In such cases, it is probably better to lose consciousness or even die. Together you get rid of everything.
Life, youth, dreams – all this is important for a healthy person and for people like me, they lose their meaning. God let no one be in such a situation.
X-rays were taken at the hospital. I slept naked for two hours in a cold room. Let those days be cursed! I ask the nurse to give me an analgesic injection, and she answers, "You’re not the only one dying". It is hard when you are powerless and helpless. The only tool is language. "You are a man or an animal?" – Only you scream. – Rascals, you left me alone and went out".
With every movement of the scissors on the operating table, I feel unbearable pain. "Be careful" – I begged.
They did not answer. But that torture is over. When I was preparing for the operation, a woman’s voice said:
– The left eye should be removed.
The man’s voice replied:
– No, we will operate, maybe he will see.
My eyes were kept by colonel Grishin. I will be grateful to this person all my life. After the operation, I was taken to the room and given sleeping pills. When I woke up, I heard the nurse’s voice:
– Look at them, all the bandages in the blood, they will not cut off the human appearance. Then the man who kept my eyes read them:
– Your mother, can you say that? Out from here!
A week later I removed the bandage from my eyes and washed the cold blood off the face. One of the nurses said, "A whole centimeter of blood has frozen".
The same doctor operated my second eye in late November. During the operation, he talked to me without stopping, asking about it, told anecdotes. He was an extraordinary doctor.
But my troubles did not end there either. Three days later, a fragment was found in my throat, blood went, a pillow was poured out. My head started turning, I was sick. It seemed like I was falling from the bed. I called the nurse. She does not go. I shouted and woke up others. But they just bothered me for preventing them from sleeping. I remained silent for a few hours. I thought I was dying. I cried again. Then the nurse came, attached a towel to the wound and left again. I began to lose consciousness. It seemed like my head was immersed in a pond filled with blood, blood flowed into my ears, my eyes. From severe pain I got back to consciousness. Someone had a wound on my throat. I felt like I was very hungry. "Give me some bread", I asked. The doctor who sewed my throat said, "Put him a dropper". When I was put on the dropper, I fell asleep. I did not see the face of Dr. Grishin. In my imagination, he was like my father.
Soon my father came. "Is Ergashev here?" I heard his voice. I had no strength to get up. The sound of my steps drew me like a magnet. With the arrival of my father, the thirst for life was awakened in me, the belief that I could still get better. In the darkness, I saw tears flowing on my father’s cheeks. Here they flow through the eyebrows. Here they go to the lips…
My father touched my hands, my legs.
– Everything is in my place, – I cheated him. He believed…
"MY CONTEMPORARIES SEEM TO ME LIKE CHILDREN…"
Kaeders Normunus, born in 1968. From Latvia. Injured in Bagdad.
As a child, I dreamed of becoming a driver. After graduating from school, before being called to the army, I learned to be a driver and managed to work a year. I don’t speak Russian very well. But you seem to understand me. In the army I got a machine KamAZ-53212. I loved her very much. We transported gasoline to Kabul. The road was asphalted. We were very afraid of the place where there were three hills along it, because there were many accidents. Two days before my injury, three Afghan cars burned there. When I saw them, I stunned. Two days later, the same story happened to me.
We returned from Kabul. There were 20 cars in the column. Kilometers three drove toward Djabal, as I was thrown, as if from a blow of electricity. My feet refused.
There nobody knew that I was married, because there was no corresponding mark on the military ticket. My thoughts turned to my wife Antra, to my mother, "My dear ones, I will not see you now", I repeated over and over again. My legs were frozen on the gas pedals. I can’t remember when I was taken to Kabul and taken on a plane. I forgot in the plane, I woke up in Dushanbe. I learned that Yuriy Kovarchik and Shikhobuddinov were wounded from our column. The man who accompanied us asked why I would repeat, "My dear ones, I can’t see you anymore". In this state, a person probably repeats the most important thing for himself. Two days have passed and I still haven’t felt both my legs. It is hard for a living person to be in such a situation overnight.
You may not believe it, but I saw death in my dreams. It was interesting. My father and I were riding the village on a motorbike. We were shot. I was wounded and fell. Suddenly I see a guy walking in the field, right in the spot, who looks like me. I am surprised and asked him:
– How did you become me? Who are you?
And he answers:
– I am death. I came to take your soul. Then I will turn into your ghost and wander through the village.
I was scared. From wherever I went, my father came in on a motorbike, and my ghost was melting on the edge of the field. There was a black spot in his place.
I was awake. There was a nurse in front of me.
– What are you worth? – I asked her. She broke up. Then I realized that this dream I saw during the operation.
– Now you will live, long live, she said.
It turned out that the bullet hit my lungs and damaged my spine. I was told that because of a wound in the spine, my legs were rejected.
In the army before Afghanistan I had a lot of illness. I have had jaundice twice. I received letters from Antra every day. Having suffered from jaundice and returning from the hospital to the barracks, I found thirty accumulated letters. Comrades are surprised that I am writing so much. Only after the injury they knew that I was married.
I’m 20 now, but I feel old. So I want to have fun, laugh with peers. But soon I get bored in their circle. They all seem like children to me.
"THE SONG WAS ABOUT THE HOMELAND…"
Sergey Bogutskoy, born in 1969. From Ukraine. Injured in Shindon.
We had to pick up the soldiers who had finished service. At five IFV took the boys from six points. Our car was driven by Fahri Yusupov. We went after the tank.
I was jealous of the soldiers coming home from this hell. They sang. The song was about the homeland, about the relatives they missed, about torments and suffering left behind.
The first was a fun Uzbek boy. The others caught. Major Vladimir Sergeevich Karakishyan joined the singers. I looked at them and remembered my native Ukraine… Stones on the streets, flowering gardens. My lyrical memories were broken by an explosion. I flew high and fell on a bunch of sludge. The IFV turned and burned. Someone jumped out of the fire:
– Serega, how are you? Were you injured? – he asked.
I did not feel pain.
– No, no, – he answered
– Where is commander?
– I don’t know, – I said and began to slip away from the burning car. My legs refused, and I slipped on my arms.
The voice said, "Comrade Major! Comrade Major!" I remembered the soldiers who were driving with me. I returned back. Next to the car in the flames someone curled on the ground. As I added, he calmed down. A thick smoke hit my nose. Heart is frozen. Human meat was burning. In search of the living, I began to look