Rank: Specialist I fought ...behind the wheel We don't often remember front-line drivers. A truck after all is not a plane or a tank. The usual hard worker 1.5 tons truck was not so adapted to front-line conditions. And how it helped! How many important things were done with its help! They took out the wounded, brought food, medicine and ammunition! Yes, it would be good on the roads, but it is off-road, on ice and impassable mud! And it got hurt both from artillery, and from aviation, and just from machine-gun bursts. So a driver was just as dangerous a military profession as any other. Well, what if a 19-year-old girl was driving? She was sent out on the driving course at a Khoperskoe Driving School in November 1941. There were no men left and a replacement was needed. She studied for 6 months, and in April 1942, the cadets were called to the military enlistment office. And they asked: who wants to go to the front? Matryona was the first to raise her hand. There were about 20 of them altogether. The train was already waiting at the station. Girls were girls - then they cried, then they consoled themselves: If it was necessary, then it was necessary. The baptism of fire was not easy - crossing of the Donets River. There were no bridges - pontoons. Shouting, noise, crying, a crowd of refugees, the wounded. And the opposite bank seemed to be close, but it was not easy to get there. She was responsible not only for herself. Was she afraid? Of course, she was afraid. But more often than not for herself - for the truck: God forbid, it would refuse. Something was forgotten over the years, something was not possible to forget. Matryona Lazareva did not forget the roads of retreat filled with guns and field kitchens, wheelbarrows with belongings and carts, women, old people, children… She had a chance to participate in the defense of Stalingrad. Along the Volga River it was even at night light from fires, and the snow was bloody and hot. Hundreds of tanks rammed across the steppe, seemingly unaware of obstacles. But people stood in their way, unshakeable in their determination not to let the enemy cross the river. Yesterday's boys were young lieutenants. They stood up to cover Russia. It was the commander of the 2nd Guards Army who addressed them: "I order you and ask you to stand in a battle to the death. We are talking about the fate of Stalingrad." Matryona had front-line work near Kalach - the extreme point of the Don bend, where the Soviet armies eventually closed in, bagging about 300,000 fascist soldiers. Our countrywoman also worked on this task. Then she was sent to Moscow to training courses for aerostats, after which Matryona served in Arkhangelsk. And she had a chance to meet the Victory in Riga, and Matryona also contributed to the fact that the Victory came, just as welcome. She was a person of bright and kind soul. Unfortunately, she will not meet victorious spring again. But the memory is alive. And may this memory of the woman who conquered the front roads and roads of life be long.