Vasilya Vorobeya, former Red Army Stormtrooper

This might sound stupid to you children.

The danger that I posed to the family and the risk that I took just to cross the other side. You could say that I should've stayed home, remarried, and settle down in solitude within some nice cottage in the woods, or an apartment complex from where I could say hello to my neighbors each and every day, experiencing the safety in numbers that I never felt during the Great Patriotic War.

Well, let me explain my reasoning first, then judge for yourself whether or not I made the correct decision.

Before Vladimir Lenin died, I was a young girl with a large family, but before he passed away, he made sure that women could be part of the working class that we've all fought for. But because of that, I didn't see much of mama or some of my older sisters as they were working in the factories while all my brothers would eventually join them or work in the fields.

Then, at the age of 22, the German army struck East and then began The Great Patriotic War. Suddenly, all of my brothers, alongside my new husband, all whom I expected to come home, rode all types of tanks and flew in the sky in response. But I never saw most of them again after that as we packed up to run East ourselves until reaching Stalingrad.

Order 227 was ordered and we were to stop running away. While mama and my sisters were used to working in the factories and worked in the factories within the city, I was immediately drafted into the Red Army in defense of the motherland. A miracle happened and I wasn't killed during the siege, but instead, eventually found myself in part of a Shock Army heading towards Berlin.

I never made it there, instead, hearing of it from other soldiers as I was sent to the Elbe to meet up with the Western Allies. There I saw a scene that seemed similar to what my uncle said he saw when he was fighting in Poland: Americans, British, Frenchmen, Canadians, the Polish of all people, were celebrating the alliance between us Russians, Ukrainians, the Polish again, Belarusians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and so much more.

If only I knew that in but a few years, we'd be enemies, just like what happened with the Germans.

But I didn't. Instead, I joined in the merry celebration and enjoyed myself for the first time in years. I danced with those Westerners and saw myself falling for an American, enough that before my unit was to be moved, I had one night with him.

And while yes I did love my Gregori, many things had happened in-between then and now, and many a tank commander, and their fellow crew members, lost their lives at Kursk. I could only imagine what had happened to him

Perhaps it's more shameful, and more painful to remember, that I did not have a honeymoon with my darling Gregori, but instead, had my first one with a random American. So while yes I have made a stupid decision, I am happy that it did happen and found a new family in a life that I couldn't imagine as a young girl.