| abstract | - Ihor Shevchenko (b. 1926) was Ukrainan farmer and veteran of the Great Patriotic War. When World War III broke out in 1951, he and his wife Anya lived on a kolkhoz (collective farm), designated 127, outside Kiev. He and his family had survived Joseph Stalin's purges and collectivization of the Ukraine throughout the 1930s. When he was 15, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Unlike some of his neighbors, Shevchenko didn't quite accept the Germans with open arms. Once the Nazis showed their true colors, Shevchenko joined a partisan band operating outside of Kiev. In 1943, Shevchenko was conscripted into the Red Army. He attained the rank of sergeant and a leg wound in Germany. He was allowed to return to his kolkhoz, where he married Anya and settled down. In January 1951, as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union mounted over the Korean War, Shevchenko learned that the Kiev Military District was mobilized. Like many in the Soviet Union (and the world), Shevchenko watched anxiously as the Soviet Union and the United States traded atomic bomb attacks against in their respective spheres of influence. While Shevchenko had his doubts about the Soviet regime, he was careful to keep them to himself. Two days later, the Soviets and their allies invaded West Germany. On 24 February, the MGB came to the kolkohz to collect men for the infantry, ultimately taking four. Shevchenko was examined by an agent until that agent was satisfied that Shevchenko's old injury would not make him a good infantryman. After they left, Shevchenko and Anya were left to contemplate how the loss of the four men might impact the farm's quotas. The next day, Radio Moscow broadcast that the Soviets had plunged deep into German territory, and that the U.S. had attacked both Soviet cities and key cities of its allies with conventional ordinance. Among these was Leningrad. Radio Moscow claimed the night attack killed children playing a park. Shevchenko wondered what children were doing in a park during a nighttime raid, but kept it to himself. The war continued on. On 2 March, the Soviets launched an audacious bombing raid against the U.S., successfully destroying several cities in the western part of the country, as well as Bangor, Maine, and a location in Newfoundland in Canada. The kolkhoz celebrated over the next days, although Shevchenko had his private doubts about the course the war was taking. On Sunday, 4 March, Anya was sick, and could not go to Kiev as she usually did. To avoid catching what she had, Shevchenko decided to walk in the woods. At one point, he saw three women on bicycle head for Kiev, and wondered if Anya had gone after all. A mere 15 or 20 minutes later, he heard the sound of sirens, jets and guns in the distance. Then an atomic bomb exploded over Kiev. He was able to get home, and began praying, even though he was not supposed to, as he realized that if Anya had not been sick, she would have gone to Kiev, and most likely have died. As a consequence, Shevchenko felt his long dormant belief in God rekindling. He didn't make too much of a spectacle in public, and Anya discouraged him from being too loud even in private. With Kiev gone, life on the kolkhoz was rather uncertain. The MGB didn't come nearly as much during March. Shevchenko realized that the grain the farm harvested usually went to Kiev. Since Kiev no longer needed it, he wondered who'd get it. In the meantime, he slaughtered a personal pig he kept, and judiciously distributed some of the meat among the community, sharing a goodly portion (effectively a bribe) with the kolkhoz chairman, Petro Hapochka. The chairman admitted that he had no idea when Kiev might be rebuilt. In the meantime, the farm began sowing their crop in May. In June, the MGB returned to the collective farm. This time, Shevchenko was taken (along with Bohdan Gavrysh), even though the MGB had previously decided Shevchenko's wounded leg was too bad for the Army. When the MGB agents made it clear that Shevchenko would face consequences, Shevchenko and Gavrysh went with them to the recruiting station in Vasilkov (the temporary capital of the Ukraine), where they learned they'd be on a train west the next day. Shevechenko soon found himself easily falling back into the groove of life as a soldier. He even took young Misha Grinovsky under his wing for a time, showing the young man various tricks, such as wrapping footcloths, and the proper care of his rifle. Once the unit was up to strength, they were sent by train to West Germany. The unit was fed into the line at Rheine. Just as he fell back into the habit of personal maintenance, Shevchenko was astonished by how easily he returned to actual combat. Prior to the battle, he met Dmitri Karsavin, another veteran of the last war, who'd lost half of his right buttock to shrapnel. Their company commander, Lt. Smushkevich, charged the two veterans with keeping the new recruits from being stupid. The next day, the attack on Rheine began, and Shevchenko made a point of finding Grinovsky, and ordering him to keep close. Sadly, Grinovsky didn't learn in time; while Shevchenko and Karsavin knew to hit the dirt during an artillery bombardment, Grinvosky stayed on his feet too long, and was ripped apart by shell fragments. Shevchenko was part of the actual invasion of the city. While the Americans resorted to house to house fighting, Rheine fell to the Soviets by the afternoon. By July, the unit was near Hörstel when Shevchenko sat on a glass bottle and cut up his left buttock. After examining the wound (and further embarassing Shevchenko), Smushkevich deemed it serious enough to transfer Shevchenko back to Hörstel, and ordered Karsavin to drive him. Once he arrived, a doctor stitched the wound, then sent him to the field hospital in town, as they were out of tetanus shots at the station. That night, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the unit's position. Shevchenko, safely in the hospital, never knew how many in the unit survived, and was relieved when the U.S. did not launch a ground assault. This article is a stub because the work is part of a larger, as-of-yet incomplete series.
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