Interview: "Sergeant major, our unit commander is an asshole. I want to run away, but I don't want to get caught. That's why we'll make a deal -- you send me to the front, but don't note anywhere that I left, and I'll give you a bottle of "Tarhun" vodka and a block of "Kazbek" cigarettes".
MARIANA MILUTINA, Senior Lieutenant
The story: On June 22 we had an exam. Well, when I heard on the radio that the war had begun, I thought: "That's good, maybe they'll at least give me a passing mark!"
NATALIA PESHKOVA, Guards Senior Lieutenant
Interview:They didn't even curse around me at the front. These were normal, regular soldiers, and not some kind of intelligentsia. There weren't any affairs at the front.
On to the West: Natasha Peshkova's glory was born in battles, in peril, in the lethal singing of tracer bullets and shells.
VIKTOR LEONOV
I spoke to the Germans in Russian: The Germans were in a hurry to finish the job before darkness, as one of the marines, which knew German, heard. Marines were running out of ammo. One of them, shouting, "That’s it! We can’t make it out of here!" - blew himself up with a hand grenade.
