Confront Indifference, Hostility : Soviet War Wounded Find Little Joy in Homecoming

Disabled Soviet veterans of the war in Afghanistan are returning home to face wrenching readjustment to a future marked by hardships and society’s indifference or even hostility for their sacrifices.

Such is the view presented in a sensitive description of their plight which appeared recently in the weekly newspaper Moscow News under the headline, “Afghanistan Veterans: Society Owes Them.”

The article deals with wounded soldiers in a military sanitorium in Saki, a resort town in the Crimea on the Black Sea, and the problems facing the men maimed in Afghanistan since the Soviet government sent in troops in December, 1979.

Western sources in Kabul, the Afghan capital, estimate that of the 115,000 or so Soviet troops in Afghanistan, about 50 are wounded every day.

According to the reporter, Viktor Turshatov, when severely wounded men arrive at the hospital they are told bluntly: “You have fulfilled your duty and sustained serious wounds. Many of you have lost legs or arms. Life is going to be very difficult for you. But you must summon your courage, acknowledge the terrible truth and remember that you are citizens of your country like anybody else, and the makers of your own destiny.”

Most of the men arriving at the sanitorium have already had many months of hospital treatment. They are at Saki to rest and recover, and most will have to go on to other hospitals for further surgery and treatment.

The rehabilitation center at Saki was opened in the early 1980s, Turshatov says, “when few people thought our presence in Afghanistan would last, and therefore it was built on a small scale.”

But soldiers with back wounds, fractures, multiple operations and amputations continued to arrive, he goes on, “and another wing had to be added.”

Turshatov says the facility has the latest in therapeutic equipment, comparable to that at the Soviet training center for cosmonauts, yet he asks: “What about those who have lost their health in Afghanistan, received the well-deserved medals and who have a tough future ahead? What about the young men themselves?” Accompanying the article is a picture of a wounded veteran slumped in his wheelchair, staring blankly at the ground.

“After an hour at the sanitorium,” Turshatov comments, “the photographer put his camera back in his bag, sat down, covered his face with his hands and said: ‘That’s all. I can’t take any more pictures.’ ”

One of the patients is identified as Capt. Igor Ovsyannikov, a commando, a regular army officer who was awarded the Order of the Red Star for valor in an action that cost him both legs.

‘Honestly, I Don’t Know’

Turshatov says he asked Ovsyannikov about the war, and was told: “Honestly, I don’t know. They are showing rebels on TV putting down their arms, but the number of heavily wounded here is not decreasing.”

Of his future, he said: “I’ll have to change my profession, of course. I want to become a historian. Studying this war, I hope I’ll understand it better.”

Ovsyannikov’s artificial limbs were far from state-of-the-art, Turshatov said. They made him think of “anything but high-tech,” he said, and his view was echoed by Capt. Mikhail Babich, acting chief of the center. He quotes Babich as saying:

“As I look at the most sophisticated artificial legs in foreign medical journals, I wonder why our boys have to put up with worse.”

Turshatov says: “There’s no comparing the recent times to the 1940s (during World War II). The number of invalids is immeasurably lower, and the country is much richer now. But are we more merciful? Will the new wave of wounded forgive our formal condolences and aid going together with antiquated crutches, wheelchairs and prostheses?”

He says the men find it “very difficult to learn to ignore the long and shamelessly curious glances” their wounds attract.

‘They Crave a Normal Life’

“They go to dances,” he says, “and stand in a circle, all by themselves. Crutches in one hand, they cavort around to loud, daredevil music. They crave a normal life, its temptations and disappointments, with what seems like ferocity.”

The people of Saki remember, Turshatov says, an evening when a local young man, tipsy with drink, sighted a disabled patient and called out: “Hey, cripple.” The soldier hobbled to where the offender stood and struck him with his crutch.

“The blow was terrible,” Turshatov says. “A casual word cost the big mouth his life.”

He quotes Lt. Col. Gennady Dorofeyev, the institution’s deputy chief for political affairs, as saying: “Many of our patients suffer from shattered nerves in addition to serious physical afflictions. They need more than good medical treatment. They need friendly attention, support and love from the people around them. But unfortunately, most remain indifferent. Worse, some prompt the lads to drink.”

According to Turshatov, some of the soldiers have received letters from home that have provided much-needed moral support. But not many.

“Alas,” he says, “the sanitorium is almost a ‘dead zone’ in this respect. Former girl friends have married. Life does not stand still while soldiers are fighting and recovering from wounds. Parents are often told not to write because the soldiers will be here only a month.”

Letter from a Comrade

One soldier, Andrei Zaitsev, talked about a letter he would just as soon not have received. He served six months in Afghanistan with a commando unit, lost a leg there and spent 18 months in one hospital after another. At Saki, he told the reporter, he received a letter from a fellow soldier, also disabled, who had been confined to a wheelchair since his discharge from the army.

“He had to go up from his village to get permission from the commission that distributes pension checks,” Zaitsev told Turshatov. He said the man went to the commission twice, and both times there was no one there.

“He said he would not care to go again,” Zaitsev said, “but he can’t survive without a pension. He’s got no legs.”

Zaitsev, who is about to be discharged himself, said: “Without a leg, I’m not very good at running the bureaucratic races, but compared to that other fellow, I’m lucky.”

Turshatov says that disabled veterans are often treated shabbily by the bureaucracy. He that only the cheapest, underpowered models of the tiny autos used by disabled people are fobbed off on wounded veterans, that prosthetic appliances are hard to come by, as are jobs, and that disability pensions are not enough to make ends meet.

He recounted a meeting of reservists last month in the city of Ashkhabad, and said the agenda ran heavily to shooting practice, driving competitions and discussions of life in the armed services.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “the (report of the meeting) did not contain a single clause about assistance to disabled veterans, although they badly need our help.”