14 November 2017. They All Had Faces… They All Had Names…

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It’s been 16 years since the death of my beloved grandmother, Valentina Alekseyevna Arno (1921-2001), whom I wrote about many times, including here.

+Вечная ей память!

She was born in 1921 in a family of Swiss descent (the family had become Orthodox in the 19th-century and was fully-Russified by the turn of the 20th-century). This young village schoolteacher went to the front during the VOV to liberate Europe, from which, many years earlier, her great-grandfather Stefan Arno had come to a prosperous Russian Empire. She took part in the liberation of Byelorussia, served in Poland, and ended the war in Berlin, where she wrote the four Russian letters of her French surname on the wall of the Reichstag.

13 November 2017

Mikhail Tyurenkov

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12 August 2017. WE REMEMBER… They Won the Great Victory

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That’s John Witte Sr of Texas… he fought in the Great War Against Fascism. He never boasted… he rarely talked about his time at war. In that, he was like millions of others. They, likewise, did their duty, did their bit in defeating the fascist snakes, and came home to raise families and make an honest living. Postwar America was better for their presence. That generation is passing on now… not many are left. Honour them, the living and the dead. They ARE an “Immortal Regiment”…

We DO remember…

THANK YOU FOR THE VICTORY… THANK YOU FOR OUR LIVES…

BMD

Aleksei Zhuravko: Let’s Support Those Who Stood As Our Real Heroes!

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Dear Friends!

On the eve of Victory Day, I wish to draw your attention to our veterans. Only 101,624 of the VOV vets are left. Time is mercilessly taking them from us. I appeal to you, their compatriots:

Friends, this isn’t an easy time for our country. Let’s support those who stood as our real heroes.

In Respect,

Aleksei Zhuravko

30 April 2017

Aleksei Zhuravko

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23 December 2016. These are MY Heroes… Yekaterina Illarionovna Kalinchuk Demina

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Today, 22 December, is the 91st birthday of Yekaterina Illarionovna Kalinchuk Demina… a legendary veteran of the VOV. At 16-years-old, she became a medical orderly in the 369 Separate Naval Infantry Battalion of the Danube Flotilla. She served with that unit throughout the entire war, being at the front in the Caucasus and Stalingrad, ending up in Hungary and Austria. She was a frontline hero, winning not only the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin, but also two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War (First Class), and the Medal “For Courage”.

Congratulations, Yekaterina Illarionovna! Happy birthday! We wish you health and many years!

22 December 2016

Yevgeni Spitsyn

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Editor:

Compare Yekaterina Illarionovna to John McCain… there’s no comparison between a real heroine and a posturing cowboy, is there?  McCain was no coward, but he was no hero either. Old hands warned him many times that his recklessness would end badly, but he refused to listen to his elders and betters (nothing much has changed in him, has it?). The US Navy refused to promote this son and grandson of admirals to flag rank (a friend told me that the Navy didn’t want such a man in command of a task force… they feared that he’d kill others to prove his macho creds). On the other hand, Yekaterina Illarionovna did her duty at the front, showing not only prudence (for she did survive four years of the most-gruelling war ever fought), but also heroism (as her decorations prove to all comers).

I know whom I admire. It’s NOT John McCain. I confide that I’m not alone in thinking that way.

BMD