Tag #115114 - Interview #78047 (Eva Ryzhevskaya)

I was assigned commander of the operative and dressing platoon. During the battles there was an acting forward detachment. A surgeon and two or three nurses went to the battlefield to administer first aid to the severely wounded - the most drastic measures - to remove fragments of shell and suppress hemorrhage. Then the orderlies took the wounded to the medical battalion. When our commander asked who would go to the forward detachment, I was the first to say that I would go. I was the chief of four men, who were permanently trying to talk me out from taking up the most dangerous tasks. I felt no fear to go to the forward detachment. It was not a kind of bravado or the desire to stand out by courage. It was just because nobody was waiting for me at home; my family had perished. And my subordinates had wives, children, parents, who were waiting for them. If I were to perish, nobody would suffer from that, but me. I kept saying that and it was true. My elder brother was the only survivor of my kin. He was also in the lines, and might have died any minute. Combat engineer was one of the most perilous military professions with a very high lethality rate.