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My father was a BMP commander in the army, in a sergeant rank (the 4th from the left in picrelated). In Afghanistan he served in the 371 Guards, Berlin, of Kutuzov and Khmelnitsky Orders, Motorized Infantry Regiment that was stationed in Shindand.
When he still was in the USSR they were called to the marching ground, their political officer told them the political situation in Afghanistan and that the Americans wanted to seize Afghanistan with the help of their allies, Pakistan and anti-Communist rebels inside the country and only the aid of the USSR prevented the placement of American nuclear missiles there. Then he asked if there are volunteers to fulfill their internationalist duty and everyone in the unit made a step forward. They were moved to Kushka (Turkmenistan) for acclimation (he server in the Urals originally) and then a cargo plane delivered them to Afghanistan.
He told the country looked really medieval, there was hot and dusty as fuck, the only good thing was that they were able to buy Western goods in shops and that hash was easily available.
He killed his first Afghan when they were sweeping a village and suddenly a bearded guy with a sabre jumped at him from a clay hut. Dad was so scared that he pressed the trigger till the mag was empty.
They also hunted dukh (Russian word for Afghan enemies) caravans and a lot of encounters with them. They even did some science and checked how many 7.62 bullets are needed to kill a camel. The camels turned out to be really tough and died only after multiple wounds.
When I asked if they killed civilians, he told me a few times they executed people on suspicion they were rebels.
Once they hunted some foreign mercenaries speaking English but they evaded the hunt and crossed the border.
One of his commanders had a habit of collecting ears. He didn't make it and died of mortar fire in an ambush.