The tragic events of July changed the attitude of the society to the army. Our army remains loyal to the soviet customs by drafting 18-year-old teenagers to the army. So for the majority of our society the soldiers are still children. Till July the attitude of the society to the army could be compared to the attitude of the parent to the child. That resembles exactly those parents, who don’t notice the right or wrong of their children. As a rule the media wouldn’t fully elucidate the reality in the army. Even the shortest article about the negative phenomena in the army would cause the discontent and critique of the so-called patriot politicians. Everybody would find his/her duty to remind that our army had won the war and that it’s the most prepared in our region. The ones who speak about the flaws in our army stretch a helping hand to the enemy. Regardless of how strange it may be all this reminds me the “Liar Todoros” performance of Karp Khachvankyan. “Dear kid, do you like candies?” Todoros would ask and the hall would burst into laughter. It is clear that no nation can ever not like its own army. And the ones, who have not seen this performance, may just recall Ostap Bender. In his famous episode he would confess, “My uncle breastfed me.” Now a similar thing is happen. People, who don’t have any connection with the army and consider themselves fake patriots, are trying to protect the Armenian Army from criticism. They bring any kind of nonsense argument. But has happened (as well as occurrences of the previous years) are direful. We are not the first state that has an army. And our army is not the first army that won the war. My age counterparts probably remember the British-Argentinean war for Malvinian or Falklands islands. This was the first “online war” if using the contemporary lexicology. The world would watch this war on TV almost live. Argentina has occupied the British islands. The UK Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher at the time. And she’s renowned with the alias “Iron Lady.” Of course, in the beginning this lady tried to resolve the conflict in a peaceful way but it didn’t work. And the Prime Minister Lady declared war on Argentina. There were too many people in the British parliament there weren’t very few people, who’d still demand that the conflict is resolved peacefully. Four marines died on the first day the British troops sent their troops on the islands. Than the Argentinean pilots bombarded the British ship. Of course, the loss of one ship was no defeat for the UK but 21 sailors were killed. The parliament demanded explanation from Thatcher, “I wanted peaceful negotiations but not peaceful capitulation,” stated the Iron Lady. When speaking of the war and the death of the 25 military Thatcher started to cry. A photographer of one of the famous British newspapers managed to take the crying picture of the Prime Minister. But the photograph wasn’t published because at the editorial they decided that this picture wouldn’t be appropriate for the state of war. The British Parliament allowed Thatcher continuing her plan. It is known that the UK won the war and returned the islands. The defeated President of Argentina signed the capitulations and peace treaties. But before that the winner UK had lost 255 soldiers. The UK once again started to celebrate the victory of its army, honor the army commanders, soldiers and political commanders. The whole UK was happy and was celebrating except for 255 families, whose fathers or sons died at the war. So these 255 families had to receive letters of condolences. But those were not just photocopied pieces of paper with the standard text running, “Your son (or father) fell on the battlefield…” The families of all the dead people received an official letter from the UK government, each personally written by Margaret Thatcher, one of the most outstanding politicians of the 20th century. The Iron Lady personally wrote to each family that their sons or fathers died for the British land, honor and dignity. She wrote 255 letters by trying to console each family. The British papers only on that day published the crying picture of the Prime Minister. But we cannot clearly find out how many casualties we had in July. At that they died not because of the enemy’s bullet but with the hands of our soldier. And no parent or brother deserved a sincere condolence.
P.S. Due to my profession I have a wider friendship than the average statistics would show. On these days I suddenly found out that none of the sons of any representative of intelligentsia that I know has had received military education. Who are the officers of the Armenian army? In all nations officers are important for the army and the nation. But who do we have – from the lieutenant till the minister. Let’s think about this.