Реферат: The Impact of the Afghan War on soviet soldiers

The impact of the Afghan War on soviet soldiers.

Defense of the Socialist Motherland is thesacred duty of every citizen of the USSR.

Article62, Soviet 1977 Constitution

Sovietinvasion in Afghanistan started in December 1979, when the first military troopscrossed the Afghan border. Only at the time of ‘perestroyka’, in the year 1988,Gorbachov, the leader of Politburo — start the process of withdrawing militarytroops from the territory of Afghanistan. Between 1979 and 1988, about 15,000soldiers were killed, and many others were wounded. Gorbachov wanted to stopthat war. He stopped it as a historical fact. But did he stop that war insidethe hearts of thousands of veterans who came back to their homes? Did heprevent the negative impact of that war on soldiers’ lives? The answer issimple — no. My essay will give evidence in support of this opinion.

The Afghan War changedmany people’s lives in the USSR. Still, in present-day Russia, the consequencesof that war are appeared. The greatest impact of the Afghan War can be seen onthe people who were there — soldiers who had to serve in Afghanistan andfulfill their ‘international duty’. The war for which there was no need, haddestroyed many soldiers’ lives. Fifteen thousand of them had been killed, andmany others had been injured, some having become invalids, unneeded to thegovernment who had sent them to that war, and to the people who were not in thewar. Every single young man who went to Afghanistan continued his lifedifferently from the people who had never been there. The effect was due notmerely to a war, but to the whole system of the ex-USSR. In my essay I will tryto describe both of these effects on soldiers’ lives.

The new life for theeighteen year old boys began when they graduated from high school. Some of thembecame recruits during the spring draft, others during the fall draft. Recruitsbound for Afghanistan would receive 8-10 weeks’ training before being sent totheir units.[1] Fromthat moment they became subject to the subordination of officers through theformal channels of authority, and the informal of dedovshina (discrimination by the older soldiers). Newcomers werekept in line, while being beaten. This continued until the new soldiers agreedto acquiesce.[2]

Thatwas just the beginning of soldiers’ lives, being sent to the war they allexperienced in very different ways. The impact of fighting and the experienceof killing, dedovshina, an alienmilitary institution, and an alien land changed the characters and lives of thesoldiers before they returned home. ‘Wewere in an alien land. And why were we there? To this day, for some, it doesn’tmatter.’[3]

Warin Afghanistan was not exclusively a male war. Many of the women whovolunteered to served in Afghanistanwere nurses, others filled a variety of support or nurture roles (as cooks, forexample). The rest were involved in paperwork or communication. For these inAfghanistan women the main problem became men. They attracted soldiers inAfghanistan not only as sex objects but also as mother figures.[4]Often women were raped by soldiers who had been sent to Afghanistan instead ofgoing to prison. Thus in the Soviet patriarchal society the belief that womenwho served in Afghanistan were whores or prostitutes took root. Here, a womanwho had served in Afghanistan describes her feelings:

‘You fulfilled your international duty in abed’… My mother proudly announced to her friends: ‘My daughter was inAfghanistan.’ My naive mother! I want to write to her: ‘Mother, be quiet oryou’ll hear people say your daughter is a prostitute.’[5]

Aftercoming home, soldiers organized the form of a community that they had beenaccustomed to in Afghanistan, with their own customs and jargon. Coming back tonormal life was enormously difficult for them, because of the reasons that Iwill explain in next paragraph. Thus, from the beginning they separatedthemselves from the surrounding society. Many veterans became members of Mafiagroups. The lives of the returning soldiers differed from each other, but onone point it was the same for every veteran: they could not live normal livesin society, as they would have without having experienced the war. In the wordsof a veteran who had served in Afghanistan: ‘You never really come home.’[6]

Oneof the main reason for veterans holding back from society was that civiliansmet soldiers coming back to homes without honor. Forty-six percent of civilianssaid that the Afghan war was a Russian national shame, and only 6% of them saidthat they were proud of their soldiers who had fulfilled their internationalduty in Afghanistan.[7]Veterans felt that their efforts and endurance had not been wholly in vain.Often veterans became the object of criticism by media and public opinion.People thought that the war had made warriors of the men, and, in fear, keptaway from veterans. The media blamed them — not the government — for takingpart in the war and partly for losing it. Thus, after coming back, soldiersstarted to look with new eyes upon the society that had sent them to theirdeath. While they had been in Afghanistan, the public and media had expressedcontempt for the soldiers; after they returned, this sentiment only increased.

Disrespectto the people and to the governmental system became common among soldiers who wereexperiencing discrimination after having fulfilled their duty. This situationgalvanized potential men, unhappy with their political system into striking.During the putsch of 1991, many veterans supported Mayor Sobchak, who supportedthe putsch against the new democratic government in Leningrad.

Thelong-term impact, and one of the most terrible consequences of the Afghan War,was the addiction of soldiers to alcohol and drugs. Death, drinking, and drugsbecame part of the veterans’ lives forever. Drugs were essential to thesurvival of the soldiers. Drugs helped them to carry 40 kilos of ammunition upand down the mountains, to overcome depression after their friends’ deaths, toprevail over the fear of death. Drugs and alcohol became the usual procedure ofself-medication when other options were denied. The abuse of drugs created ageneration of drug and alcohol addicts. According to the official reports ofthe Russian Department of Health Services, 40 millions medically certifiedalcoholics in 1985 were registered. Consumption of alcohol had increased 20,4%from its consumption in 1950-79.[8]If these were official reports then it is possible that they were only a partof truth, and another part is like the bottom part of an iceberg — it cannot bepredicted.

There wasn’t a single person among us whodid not try drugs in Afghanistan. You needed relaxation there, or you went outof your mind.

Veteran of Afghan War[9]

Comingback home, veterans found employment in many different fields, from drivingbuses to banking. But most of them started to work on the field which wasclosest to what they had done in Afghanistan. Emergency services such as thefiremen, militia and rescue departments had a shortage of workers at that timeand many of the Afghan veterans continued to work there. Finding a job was oneof the privileges which the government gave to the veterans. This was maybe theonly privilege which was really fulfilled. But this was a strategic maneuverfor the Soviet government: to prevent veterans from assuming employment in theUnion of Afghan War Veterans Society. The government was afraid of this Unionbecause it united the most dangerous and prepared warriors in Russia.

Another major impact ofthe Afghan war on soldiers lives’ was injuries and mental disorders. ‘Most of us came home. Only we all came homedifferently. Some of us on crutches, some of us with gray hair, many in zinccoffins.’[10]Although a medical service was established on a modern and highly effectivelevel ( 93% of the troops received initial medical aid within 30 minutes andthe attention of a specialized doctor within six hours), many soldiers becameinvalids during the war. Fifty thousand soldiers were wounded in action, ofwhom 11,371 became invalids and were unable to return to work, while 1,479veterans received the most serious category of disability.[11]

These veterans were unable to continue working and leading normal lives. Thesecircumstances forced them to live on the earnings of their family members andon the governments’ invalid benefit. But even these benefits were paidinconstantly and were extremely low. One of the privileges which Afghanistanveterans received was a flat in a newly built house. In the Soviet Russiansystem, which recognized no private ownership of property, every single citizenhad to wait in a line of thousands of people before getting a flat. Afghanistanveterans were put at the beginning of that line, but corruption in the Russianbureaucracy had widened the process of granting new flats to the invalids andveterans. Thus when the free market economy was established in Russia and allthe lines for the flats were canceled, people had to buy them with their ownmoney, and many veterans and invalids of the Afghan War remained without theirflats. Thus the bureaucratic system in Russia had left most of the veteranswithout their privileges and benefits.

Onemother wrote in the letter to Politburo ‘Whydid you ruin my son, why did you spoil his mind and his soul?’.[12]While physical disability was relatively easy to prove and to cure, thepsychological damage was far more complicated to diagnosis and to treat. Moderncounter-insurgency wars involve a particularly high incidence of psychologicaldamage; generally Post-Traumatic stress disorders, symptoms which includeflashbacks, emotional numbness, withdrawal, jumpy hyperalertness orover-compensatory extroversion. This was caused partly because of the criticalstresses of combat and injury. In most cases mental disorders were caused byunclear front-line zones. Soldiers had experienced mostly ‘road war’ withoutclear front-line meant that no place was safe. Soldiers were always ready forthe battle alarm; there was no time to rest. ‘Knowing their terrain well, the resistance fighters can move with easeat night and night vision equipment would enable them to train accurately theirweapons on enemy targets...’[13]

And how could soldiers relax, knowing that an unguided rocket could penetratealmost all security perimeters, that even a ten year old boy could carry and usea pistol or a grenade? One veteran recalled:

...the leading vehicle broke down. Thedriver got out and lifted the bonnet — and the boy, about ten years old, rushedout and stabbed him in the back… We turned the boy into a sieve.

Veteran of Afghan War[14]

Anotherhistorical testament to that violence was found in a different source:

‘...in early May 1981 they killed a number ofchildren in the village of Kalakan, the stronghold of SAMA. The Russiansoldiers were stated to have said, ‘When the children grow up they take up armsagainst us’...’[15]

Howcan people who killed a ten year old boy live normally after coming back to themotherland? Without safe place, restless — these circumstances may cause ahealthy adult to become mentally imbalanced. What can it do to nineteen yearold boys, who had been drafted just after finishing their school and who hadnot seen life yet? They can easily lose their minds. But psychologicaldisorders became classified adequately to the status of invalid only later.Yet, no category of invalidity was given to that disability. Thus, mentallysick veterans had to live almost entirely on support from friends and family.In this way the government ignored the impact of the war, which was started byits decree, on soldiers’ lives.

Ina normal society the killing of another man is not permitted; killers receivethe death penalty. During the war this situation had been changed and inAfghanistan soldiers had received a license to kill their enemies, who werealso human beings. With a machine-gun soldiers received the power of life anddeath and the feeling of authority to do what they wished became common amongRussian soldiers in Afghanistan. Problems ensued when soldiers were unable toovercome that feeling once they has left their guns behind. Some soldiers,unable to square the demands of war with the demands of their conscience, werestamped with amorality. Others became compulsively violent. ‘...they killed thirty-one villages, slayingthem inside mosques, in lanes, or inside their homes.’[16] These circumstances createdanother impact of the Afghan War. By the end of 1989, about 3,000 veterans werein prisons for criminal offenses, while another 2,540 soldiers were imprisonedfor crimes committed while serving in Afghanistan.[17]

Thus the Afghan War created criminals who were trained to kill. Among thecrimes committed by soldiers in Afghanistan, the most common were hooliganism12,6%, rape 11,8%, theft of personal property 12,4%, robbery 11,9% and murder8,4% (these percentages were taken from the total number of 2,540 soldiersconvicted of crime).[18]

Thusthe war had affected all of the soldiers who experienced it. Some becamecriminals, others became invalids without any actual support from thegovernment. The rest had to face the psychological impact of the war, which wascalled as ‘afghan syndrome’ by the media. Most of these people decided todedicate their lives to helping the victims of the Afghan War. In Leningrad,several organizations were created with the aim to aid physical andpsychological victims of the war. LAVVA (Leningrad Association of Veterans ofthe War in Afghanistan), ‘K sovesti’ LeningradInformation-Publication Organization, ‘Modul’Cultural-Leisure Center for Veterans of the Foreign War Association — these arejust a few of many organizations created throughout the USSR.[19]Left and unsupported by the government, these organizations aimed to provideextra facilities for the treatment of injured veterans, to compensate veteransfully or partly for the expenses of necessary treatment, to develop sports forinvalid and to force the government to support the invalids’ rights.

Thusthe experience of the Afghan War had a twofold impact on soldiers’ lives:first, the impact of the war itself and second, the impact of returning to apeaceful life after the war. In the words of one veteran:

What did the war give tous? Thousands of mothers who lost sons, thousands of cripples, thousands oftorn-up lives.[20]

While in Afghanistan, soldiersexperienced discrimination by the older soldiers and by the officers. Theforeign land, the experience of fighting, the death of friends, the highlydifficult conditions of living, and the absence of a stimulus to fighting mademost of the soldiers addicted to drugs and alcohol. Drugs became an easy sourceof relaxation because Afghanistan is one of the biggest suppliers of marijuanaon the black market.

Theterm ‘lost generation’ can be applied towards the veterans of the Afghan War.This war had created a generation of alcoholics and drug addicts. It also mademany young people invalids unable to work and to earn money on their own. Theother ‘creation’ of the war in Afghanistan was the increased rate of violenceand immoral behavior among soldiers and veterans of the war. These circumstanceshad made criminals out of 19 year old boys. Discrimination by the publicopinion and media, and the unwillingness of the government to help victims ofthe war even increased the number of criminals, alcoholics and drug addictsamong the veterans of the Afghan war.

Footnotes:

[1]

VladislavTamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam(San Francisco: Mercury House, 1992), p.156.

[2]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War (London: Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd., Midsomer Norton,1995), p.35.

[3]

VladislavTamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, p.64.

[4]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.41.

[5]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.41.

[6]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.45.

[7]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.47.

[8]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.51.

[9]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.52.

[10]

VladislavTamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, p.164.

[11]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.68.

[12]

DiegoCordovez, Selig S. Harrison, Out ofAfghanistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1995), p.247.

[13]

NasirShansab, Soviet Expansion in the ThirdWorld (Maryland: Silver Spring, 1986), p.171.

[14]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.69.

[15]

M.Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan (LosAngeles: University of California Press, 1995), p.241.

[16]

M.Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan,p.241.

[17]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.71.

[18]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.72.

[19]

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War, p.81.

[20]

VladislavTamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, p.164.

Evaluationof the historical sources:

The book Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War by Mark Galeottiwere used a number of materials written both in English and in Russian. Mostlythe references I have used were taken by the author from articles from newspapers with theinterviewees of veterans. I count this source of information as reliablebecause the author showed the point of view on the Afghan War of both veteransof Soviet military forces and from the United States, which supportedAfghanistan during that war.

Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnamwas written by a Soviet veteran who served inAfghanistan for two years. Of course he supported the Soviet’s military forces,so I used this source only to show the general mood of soldiers during theAfghan War. The author’s personal opinion was taken for this.

Afghanistan,by Hassan Hakar, showed the Afghan War from the Afghan side. Thissource was predisposed against the Soviets, so I used it to show the other sideof soldiers’ characters — the violence and murders of the civilian populationof Afghanistan. This source would be not reliable if the facts were not provenby the other sources I used.

Out of Afghanistan, by Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, was interesting because itsupported both sides of the Afghan War with historical facts and documents. Thebook’s facts were based on official documents of both the Soviet and the Afghangovernments. This source gave me a whole, truthful picture of what happened inAfghanistan. According to this information I built my opinion of what was thereal impact of the Afghan War on the personal lives of soldiers while they wereserving in Afghanistan.

Soviet Expansion in the Third Worldby Nasir Shansab, whose nationality is afghan,was useful because showed the tragedy of afghan people without insulting theSoviet military forces. It also showed the Afghan army’s dangerous force ofresistance.

All these books after criticalanalysis gave me the information needed for my essay.

Bibliography:

1.

VladislavTamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam(San Francisco: Mercury House, 1992)

2.

MarkGaleotti, Afghanistan: The SovietUnion’s Last War (London: Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd., Midsomer Norton, 1995)

3.

M.Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan (LosAngeles: University of California Press, 1995)

4.

NasirShansab, Soviet Expansion in the ThirdWorld (Maryland: Silver Spring, 1986)

5.

DiegoCordovez, Selig S. Harrison, Out ofAfghanistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1995)

еще рефераты

Еще работы по иностранным языкам

Реферат по иностранным языкам

The Irish and Australia

29 Августа 2013

Реферат по иностранным языкам

The Irish and South America

29 Августа 2013

Реферат по иностранным языкам

The People Trade

29 Августа 2013

Реферат по иностранным языкам

The Proverbs Are Children Of Experience (Пословицы - Дети Опыта)

29 Августа 2013