"Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Everyone's a psycho!" yelled someone else.

... grown-up idiots, the whole bleeding lot...

The lives of sons of bitches like Prokhorov, slobs and mean bastards
like Titov, hounded juniors like Myshkovsky, Sychev and Chirikov, clowns
like Panasyuk and similar typical and untypical persons and non-persons of
the latest and intervening call-ups belonged to Sharagin. Rather, he was
assigned to this motley crew known as a platoon, and it was up to him to
make the platoon combat-worthy, it was his job to think about the platoon,
these people, every hour, minute and second, to worry and make decisions as
a result of which the soldiers would return home alive from Afghanistan, or
not.

One could spend eternity cursing these young men, drafted from all ends
of the Land of the Soviets to active military service,

... brainless "elephants"...

but right now Sharagin cursed them to himself, just as he did aloud,
for errors and for trifles about which the soldiers didn't give a damn, but
which could prove fatal in war. He cursed them, but at the same time he
sympathised with each one individually, and was saddened each time when the
hardened youngsters left his squad, in the USSR or here in Afghanistan,
after their two-year stint. Sharagin truly valued that inexplicable and
unique phenomenon that is called a Soviet, Russian soldier.

... where does the Soviet soldier's frequent total disregard of death
arise, his endless courage and desperate feats? ... an Afghan soldier is
nothing like that, just try telling him that he has to go from Kabul to
Kandahar: he won't, not for any money, each one of those 'afghanoids' thinks
only of saving his own skin, while we guard their peace, do their dirty work
for them, slave our guts out ... because they're all cowards, and our lads
can't wait to get into battle ... what is it, excessive romanticism? no,
they've seen it all, and still strain at the leash ... are they stupid? but
they're not such fools as to throw life away needlessly ... duty? no, that's
for the newspapers, empty words ... Russian recklessness? partly ... nobody
can really understand it ... just as nobody can solve the riddle of the
Russian soul, nobody ... huge, deep, like our country ... untractable,
unpredictable ... only the Russian soul can encompass unbelievable breadth,
sincerity, openness and sentimentality alongside such traits as villainy,
boot-licking, baseness, servility, selfless love of others and total
disregard for human life ... especially for those on top, human life loses
all value, especially in Moscow, among those bastards who wear out the seats
of their pants in HQ offices ... they do not see us as individuals, but as
battalions, companies and divisions ...

... that's enough philosophizing, Sharagin, time to get back to
business, the war, and not sit around meditating ... what did I start with?
oh, yes - the boundless courage of Russian soldiers...