In Afghanistan

After an unprecedentedly long journey, Choi Jin-hyeon, whose military rank was corporal, arrived at Kabul International Airport. These were her baggage: a military backpack, a medical bag and an AK-74 assault rifle with bullets. Having got off the transport plane that had carried her and numerous military materials, immediately, she felt the weather here extremely hot.

This situation was never surprising in dry Afghanistan, where the summer is much hotter than the winter, and the daytime is much hotter than the night. As Choi Jin-hyeon arrived here at noon of July 12, 1986, she would unavoidably experience the hot weather in this Asian country.

Spontaneously raising her eyes to the blue sky, Choi Jin-hyeon saw several white clouds stagnating in the latter, due to lack of wind. What was the most attracting in her opinion was that one of these clouds looked similar with Zilant, a famous sculpture of a dragon-like monster in Kazan, the capital city of Tartar, a republic in Soviet Union. From 1978 to 1985, as a secondary student, Choi Jin-hyeon learned in Kazan and had ever seen this ancient sculpture.

“I’m not in Kazan now, however,” Choi Jin-hyeon guessed. “What’s more, I’m not in Soviet Union but another country.”

The purpose for Choi Jin-hyeon to arrive at Afghanistan was not to travel or to gather news, as she was neither a traveller nor a journalist. Born on September 2, 1968, having graduated from the secondary school, since September 1985, she was an undergraduate of the S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, which was one of the most outstanding military medical academies in Soviet Union and located in Leningrad.

As doctors are responsible for resolving health problems and even saving lives of human beings, medical students who dream to be doctors in the future have to receive strict educations at school: this principle is not only suitable for civilian ones but military ones. To be Soviet military surgeons in the future, besides medicine itself, Choi Jin-hyeon and her fellow students had to receive strict military training regularly. For example, they were obligated to learn long-distanced running, shooting and so on, all of which were also essential to common Soviet soldiers. These courses were all not relaxing but extremely tiring; however, as Choi Jin-hyeon had been dreaming to be a military surgeon from childhood, every time when she felt exhausted, she necessarily encouraged and even forced herself to hold on.

When Choi Jin-hyeon was eleven years old, Soviet Union launched a war against Afghanistan; according to the former’s government, this war was just, aiming to fulfill internationalism and liberate Afghan people who were enslaved by landlords, priests and so on. At the beginning of this war, Soviet army with a designation “The 40th Group Army” had controlled Afghan cities very rapidly; during following several years, however, endless counterattacks by Afghan militants caused their enemies to be always nervous. When Choi Jin-hyeon came to Afghanistan, many Soviet citizens had begun to wonder whether this war was really meaningful and just, although they did not dare publish their thoughts, afraid of being punished by their government.

Choi Jin-hyeon was nonetheless different from these fellow citizens. Having finished the first year during her undergraduate period, she specially went to meet her headmaster to apply suspension of schooling to be a medic in the 40th Group Army, the headquarters of which was set in Kabul. After an argument, moved by her sincerity, the headmaster finally supported her.

“This is why I must thank my headmaster,” walking out of the parking apron, she guessed. “If he did not support me, I would be impossible to realize this willing.”

According to an acceptance letter which she had received and stored in her military backpack, she would not work in Kabul. The 1st Battalion, the 3rd Regiment, the 3rd Brigade in a Soviet motorized infantry division stationed in Bamyan Province had admitted her as a new medic to replace a previous one who had been fired due to the serious psychological illness. Moreover, in this letter, the battalion commander had specified a location in the airport where a fleet from the battalion would meet her and carry her to the headquarters’ camp.

To ensure herself would not misremember the location to wait for the fleet, Choi Jin-hyeon took out the acceptance letter and read it again. Having confirmed that she did not misremember, she started to walk to the location. Before arriving there, she saw a team of disabled soldiers, each of whom was carried by one or more healthy comrades. In this team, a soldier who had lost his right arm turned his head and spoke to a comrade, as soon as he saw Choi Jin-hyeon: “Look, Pavel, what a yellow-skinned beauty! She has turned me on.”

Unaware of his name, Choi Jin-hyeon had found a feature of this soldier: his voice was so gruff, similar with that of a brown bear suffering from pharyngitis.

Pavel, who had become without his left leg, also had a look at Choi Jin-hyeon and replied: “Right, Petro. If I could sleep with her, even though only once, I would like to lose another leg of mine to pay for this excellent enjoyment.” Compared with Petro, his voice heard much more normal; nonetheless, what he spoke out were also obscene.

Then they both laughed loudly, while Choi Jin-hyeon felt herself seriously offended and concurrently indignant, while her own heartbeats had become overly violent, and her face had become much hotter than the current weather in Kabul. She did not understand why these two soldiers could offend her so boldly. Did their disabilities cause their minds to become morbid? Or the fact was different, as they were originally so morbid that they spoke out so dirty words? If they were not so obscene, she originally meant to take pity on them.

Whatever the correct answer was, Choi Jin-hyeon forced herself to ignore this event. After all, at this moment, the most important thing for her was to arrive at the battalion’s headquarters on time. This was why she walked more rapidly.

Before long, she met the fleet in the specified location. As she saw, this fleet was led by an armored motor car, following which were several military trucks and one more armored motor car. From the first truck in this fleet, a second lieutenant got off, had a look at her and walked to her.

“Excuse me,” he inquired politely. “Are you Comrade Igilova?” Choi Jin-hyeon’s official and full name in Soviet Union was Veronika Aleksandrovna Igilova; therefore, he called her in this way.

“Yes, I am,” having answered, Choi Jin-hyeon showed the acceptance letter to him and then asked. “It’s signed by our leadership and therefore valid, isn’t it?”

Having checked the letter carefully, the second lieutenant answered with a smile: “Absolutely right.” Then he introduced himself: “I’m Petro Mikhailovich Semichastny, the supply platoon’s leader. Nice to meet you, Comrade Igilova.”

Another Petro! Having heard this name, immediately, Choi Jin-hyeon thought of one of the disabled soldiers who had offended her. Feeling sick, she managed to calm herself down, saluted to Semichastny and requested: “Nice to meet you, Comrade Semichastny. Please tell me what I should do next.”

“Would you like to wait us for a moment?” Semichastny replied. “We come here not only to meet you but to carry some material supplies to our battalion.”

“No problem,” Choi Jin-hyeon replied politely, while she wondered why this driver did not let her get on just right now. As promised, she stood on the ground to wait, while Semichastny and his subordinates went to carry the supplies.

After storing the supplies from another airplane, this fleet started to advance to the 1st Battalion’s headquarters. Invited by Semichastny, Choi Jin-hyeon got on his truck and sat in the passenger seat. Immediately, she understood why Semichastny let her wait outside a moment ago: the air temperature in this driver's cab was higher than outside one, although its windows were all opened. Choi Jin-hyeon was not fat and therefore with less amount of heat within her body; nonetheless, she could not help sweating.

“Excuse me, Comrade Igilova, are you a Tartar or a Kalmuck?” having a look at this female soldier with short hair was not a Caucasian but a Mongoloid, Semichastny asked her for her ethnic group, after she had sit down and he had started his truck. He was interested in this issue; therefore, he asked in this way.

“Neither, although my home is in a village in Tatar Republic,” Choi Jin-hyeon answered. “I’m a Korean.”

“Korean? Rare in our Soviet Union!” Semichastny said. Indeed, in Soviet Union, the total population of Koreans was much smaller than those of many other ethnic groups, such as Russians and Ukrainians, although it was more than one hundred thousand then.

Following, he continued to ask: “How tall are you?”

Choi Jin-hyeon understood why he asked so. With a height of 1.7 meters, she was conspicuous among large amounts of Soviet females, even Russian ones who were tall. After she had spoken out her own height, Semichastny asked another question: “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” after answering in this way, Choi Jin-hyeon regarded this answer as overly brief and therefore added: “I was born on September 2nd 1968. In other words, I’m actually not eighteen years old yet.”

“I’m three years older than you,” Semichastny told her.

“Really?” Choi Jin-hyeon felt unexpected, staring at Semichastny’s face. Due to his dark skin and big dark pouches under his eyes, she guessed that he should be about thirty years old, regardless of twenty nine or thirty one. She was unable to believe that he was so young.

Due to her reaction, Semichastny laughed and mocked himself: “Of course I’m not joking. But I do look much older than my genuine age, don’t I?”

Choi Jin-hyeon smiled. Actually, Semichastny was unable to believe that she would be eighteen years old two months later, due to her face and eyes, all of which were round and lovely, causing her to look like a kid. Compared with her amazing height of 1.7 meters, her faces and eyes seemed to be more lovely.

Gradually, the fleet had become far away from Kabul. While Semichastny was driving his truck on a highway that linked Kabul and Bamyan, Choi Jin-hyeon could not help looking through the truck’s window and therefore saw an amazing scene: under the sky that was as blue as a deep and clean sea, the top of an extremely lofty mountain, which was a part of Hindu Kush Mountains, was covered by white snow. Neither blue nor white are warm colors in perspective of the fine arts; however, this scene had caused Choi Jin-hyeon to feel a holy sense of beauty and therefore touched her heart.

Contrary with this distant view, what was happening beside the fleet was not pleasant at all. Due to the extremely dry climate and lack of enough vegetative cover in Afghanistan, this highway was always covered by yellow dust. As a result when trucks and armored motor cars were running on the highway, their wheels and tail gases stir up the dust, some of which had entered the driver's cab and even entered Choi Jin-hyeon’s nasal cavity, causing her to feel terrible.

“Excuse me, Comrade Semichastny,” Choi Jin-hyeon requested. “May I close this window to defend against the dust outside for a moment? ”

“Don’t do it, please,” Semichastny prevented her bluntly. “If you’ve closed the window, although you can stop the dust, this cab will become as hot as a stove; thus, you’ll prefer to suffer from the unpleasant dust. That’ll be worse.”

Believing that Semichastny was not joking, Choi Jin-hyeon abandoned her original plan. To comfort her, Semichastny emphasized: “Don’t worry. After we have passed by this highway, there won’t be so much dust.”

What he emphasized was correct. After the situation had become better, Semichastny asked Choi Jin-hyeon: “Comrade Igilova, have you ever learn something about Afghanistan before coming here?”

At the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, Soviet army had ever carefully trained soldiers to ensure that the latter would be familiar with this country’s details, such as languages, customs and geographic features. This was a method to help them fighting in Afghanistan more easily. As the situation was becoming adverse to Soviet Union, however such trains had become rare.

“I have already read one introduction of its basic situations, but I’m not familiar with this country yet,” Choi Jin-hyeon answered bluntly and then requested. “If I consult you on the questions, would you like to reply in detail? Especially, I don’t know Afghans’ mother tongues, although I’m good at English.”

“No problem,” Semichastny promised generously. “I can speak Hazaragi, so I will act as your translator when necessary.”

“Thanks a lot!” Choi Jin-hyeon replied with a sincere smile.