Frag Out! Magazine

Where is the limit? Exhaustion, fear, responsibility, all that's left in your head, after situations as dramatic as the ones that you experience during the war? War that has been going on since 2014! It's hard to say where the line is... We are constantly approaching it, skirting around, poking it, we are on the edge of it all. Everyone has their limits - but the one that cannot be violated is the same for anybody - the line defined by actually sentencing oneself to death by the un- dertaken actions. We try to feel our way around us and find that final safe area, not to leave it. But the adrenaline, and the expectations expressed by the Ukrainians with whom we are working all mean that it is difficult to find the limits. The threats there, at the frontline, are continuous, they go down, they go up. Now it is important to feel where the red, uncrossable line is. Now, when we were working in Bakhmut under siege, we were dancing on that line all the time, walking it - anytime when we were leaving the basement, the shelter, this could have had dire consequences. The last rotation has shown us that we have crossed that red line a bit when it comes to our health. We were leaving the city for 24 hours to re- pack, get new supplies, and then get back to that city. The vitals, the lack of rest, the work conditions, our condition after we left for Poland, our health now...Our lungs are ruined, and we need to heal, we have crossed that red line, as we were involved too much, allowing ourselves to regain combat readiness there, on-site, but with- out any time to take a breather. This is an interesting matter. Generally, it is a good situation, when fear is present. We are not speaking of anxiety - anxiety is bad, it paralyzes you, and you are unable to act. Fear, on the other hand, is a good phenomenon. It is a kind of red light, tell- ing you: „Oh, watch out! Something bad may happen here!". And one may say that anyone can be afraid. But you know that when you're in danger all the time, when you get used to it when you adapt to what is happening there, there is less and less fear, and at some point in time it turns out that you are less and less afraid. And this is dangerous, as you know you are leav- ing that natural fail-safe somewhere, that should keep you in check. We are trying to do everything not to lose that fear, to have that controlled worry about things that could go wrong present somewhere, keeping one in control. What is a certainty for a man who says: "I don't know if I'm going to be around tomorrow"? Or for those knowing the choice between being in captivity, and in that "other world"? You cannot be sure of anything. You are not certain whether you wake up in the morning, whether the cellar may collapse, whether you can return to the safe shelter once you leave to help the wounded, you are not certain whether the enemy would encircle you or not – the world out there is an ever-changing one. You go out, in front of the cellar, and you see the landscape change, you see the backyard received a new dose of shelling, you see the col- lapsed apartment blocks, and you realize that the guys that you had your breakfast with are probably dead and that you will probably never eat breakfast with them again. You cannot be sure of anything, one needs a few emergency plans pre- pared, to adapt to different circumstanc- es. Tell us a bit about brotherhood: team relations, communications, bonds, some rituals? We are working with elements and units that we have known for a while, at least from the period when the conflict escalation began. These are mainly SOF elements, Ukrainian ones, but also air- borne-assault elements - all of them have their customs and traditions, but some are cultivated by all soldiers in the area, and that brotherhood is very much notice- able. These customs include wearing a specific patch, „THE" patch, of a specific element, and that patch may only be worn by those considered to be members of that element - but they do not belong to it structurally, but fight hand in hand with them, staying with them... And when you receive a patch as such from the com- mander, it is the highest expression of the fact that you belong with them. And we have some patches of specific units at hand, and we have a right to wear them. When it comes to brotherhood as such, we stay in touch with the guys, we know their families, we know what's going on over there. We do not treat it as a „ser- vice-based relationship" - they take us to the frontline and we are helping them. Here, a strong „brothers in arms'' vibe emerges. When it comes to rituals and customs, there are plenty. One of those, common in the Bakhmut region is that we say hi, 78 www.fragoutmag.com

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