Giorgi smoking, he wanted me to take this pic to send to some girl in Russia
I guess he thought he would look cooler if he was smoking in it. He has to hide his smoking though.
Nugo(the hypocrite who smokes a pack a day) forbids him from smoking, even though Gio is 18, its ridiculous
but hey, thats Georgia
Gio's best friend, Sami?(I think) he speaks German pretty good, so me and him communicate some
which is more than I do with most Georgians, usually talking about basketball(go Lakers) which makes just makes it even more weird
I told you about Nugo's grandmother, this is Ia's(Nugo's wife, my fave Georgian)
she was one of those legendary female snipers of the "Great Patriotic War" a subject I have always been deeply fascinated with
Gio in some of his dad's old uniform, now what interested me most about this uniform is that it is East German,
not "Soviet" seems the Russians filled out East German corps with "volunteers" from other "republics" of the USSR
and I happen to know that this one was one of the ones in the West which we rated as
elite
I had no idea it was almost wholly made of troops from the Caucasus mountains
makes sense now to me though since as fierce as German soldiers can be, I never really understood the notion that East German troops would have fought NATO since most hated their Soviet overlords
Georgians, on the other hand have always been an integral part of what was the Soviet "war machine" since the days of Stalin*
this is a pic of "Hind" gunship flying over my head, I heard its distinctive "thrum, drum, thrum" from far off
an eerie feeling for me, out in the open, unarmed,
see back in the day, these guys were what we feared most in the Mech infantry, the Bradley(which I was a gunner in) could handle a lot of Soviet threats, but not these
so I noticed my heartbeat start to race as it came closer, luckily it stayed high up
I took this pic just to have something to do, funny how some things never leave you, I mean I never saw one of these in the war, hell, the only guys I knew, who were killed, it was by our own Apaches!
still though, low flying gunships, not something I like to be around, ever
I met this guy at a "Supra" on VE day(a big celebration here) he was a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
and I(somehow) managed to communicate to him the absurdness of the fact that Georgia fought in both that war and now in "our" war there
Afghanistan, where war is truly eternal**
not only Nugo is cruel to dogs here, this is Simba, a beautiful creature chained up for my protection I am told
of course, by the time I left that house, he was not barking at me, dogs, they just know
I took this pic of Loma the night before they executed him
I gave him water and food, hugged him a lot
and even cried a little, I could see the shock on the Georgian's faces
particularly Nugo and his father's looks of disgust and laughing at me
these men who served only in peace time, think me weak which I find so incredible
here, me, Robby, veteran of war, killer of my fellow man seen as weak because I detest their cruelty to animals
what a world!
*=interesting note, the famous picture of a Soviet soldier raising the red banner over Berlin was from near where I live, these mountain folk really can climb anything
**= we toasted to peace coming to Afghanistan, and to the dead, all the dead, only me and him toasted to that
the other men at the table did not, once again, the remarkableness of it, me and him, the only two real vets at that Supra and we were the only ones that toasted all the dead, even our "enemies"