...I get scared when I think about the future of our army, the future of my country. We are losing the younger generation, and tomorrow there will be no one to defend our native country. Our guys, to shame and regret, lose the best qualities inherent in Soviet soldiers: selflessness in serving the Fatherland, selflessness. Your own interests come first. And didn't the increase in the number of refuseniks and deserters and the war in Chechnya show this with sufficient evidence?

And from my front-line past, a young Red Army soldier with a height no higher than a rifle - guard, Private Kostyuchek, appears as a beautiful knight. It would seem that he could keep a low profile in battle. But among his fellow soldiers, he was the youngest Hero of the Soviet Union, who repeatedly showed examples of courage. Victory was just around the corner - we were sweeping the Nazis out of Belarus. And at the decisive moment of the attack, the 18-year-old boy was again in front. He rushed towards the leaden hurricane and closed the embrasure of the enemy pillbox...

Why is the holy sacrifice in the name of the Fatherland perceived by today's accelerators without reverence? Yes, because those who are trying their best to make young people look at the achievements and losses of the people with indifference and detachment, stop thinking and acting like a state, have pretty much messed up here. And the feat itself is thoroughly vulgarized. The new compilers of school textbooks also followed this path. They were not ashamed to put the legendary commander Zhukov and the traitorous General Vlasov on the same level.

My contemporaries, friends of the war years, were not at all the primitive cogs in the Stalinist machine that we are sometimes portrayed as. Nevertheless, we considered the main values to be love for the Motherland, the ability to defend it, and if necessary, to die for it with dignity.

In the stories about the experience, we do not try to please the newfangled views about the forties-gunpowder. We emphasize the importance of the friendship of the peoples of the USSR in the defeat of the Nazi invaders. We say-yes,yes, do not be surprised-and about the mobilizing role of the party organization. After all, at the front, membership in the CPSU did not give any indulgences, except for one privilege: the first to rise from the trench and drag his comrades along with him.

It seems that this is how veterans are destined to fight to the end, now for the truth about the war, for the continuity of those moral values that helped to smash the formidable enemy.

Our Stalingrad today is a struggle for the hearts of the young, for their patriotic upbringing.

My battle brothers G. N. Tkachenko, I. P. Minin, S. F. Filimonov, P. M. Finokhin and others are actively working in sponsored units and schools. We organize conferences dedicated to memorable battles and anniversaries of military leaders, hold seminars with history teachers. There are also visible results. Say, at school ?3. Reutov, Moscow region in recent years, there has not been a single case where a graduate refused to join the army. The mood of the front-line soldiers is offensive, as in a fiery time.

I would like to see in the current 18-year-olds loyalty to the banner, readiness to fight for national values. And in the most prosperous times (not to mention today), it is inexcusable to forget about the relatives on whose destinies the state is based. "Where is your Stalingrad? I ask the average young man in my mind. - Will you raise the bar of your will, focusing on the feat of the creators of Victory, which has never been equaled in history? Do not forget this is a sure remedy for "sagging", pessimism, indifference!" I am convinced that we will not get rid of the spirit of defeatism and apostasy until we revive the defensive consciousness and offensive impulse of the nation. Perhaps, as a veteran of an assault division, it will be permissible for me to say bluntly to every soldier and officer who is in the ranks: keep, my son, the honor of your native unit, hold on to the heights won by your front-line peers!

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