Rank: Second Military Lieutenant: Land Forces, Air Force (except Naval Aviation), Coastal Service, NKVD Troops, Border Guard. Hello Contemporaries! I will tell you about my grandfather, who survived this terrible war and was not crippled or disabled. The name of my grandfather is Mikhail Kononov. He was born on the seventh of January nineteen hundred and twenty-four in the Oryol region and grew up in Siberia. His parents were farmers. When the war began, my grandfather was only seventeen years old. After he learned about the beginning of the war, he volunteered for military service and was sent to serve in the Far Eastern fleet. There he was enrolled in the Weapons School, where he was commander of the anti-aircraft artillery. After completing the course of a young man in the Red Navy, he was enrolled in the anti-aircraft artillery. He was transferred to the Northern Fleet. The military squadron of young fighters went from Vladivostok across the country to the front line in the west. My grandfather and a group of young men were sent to the Krasnoyarsk area, the town of Kamyshin. There a ski land brigade was formed, ready to be thrown into the back of the enemy from the northern fleet. The boys, the students of yesterday, went through a very difficult school of life. From Monday morning to Saturday evening classes were held in the harsh climate of Krasnoyarsk region, and they spent the night in the forest on the branches of Christmas trees. In 1942 the soldiers were loaded on the train and sent to the West. In April they were sent to the front, where terrible fighting took place. Grandfather's airborne group walked along the front line for two months, eliminating the breakthroughs of the forward positions. They carried skis on their shoulders, splashed through the mud in felt boots and slept standing up, in the forest or in a ravine. In one of the skirmishes with the Nazis my grandfather was wounded and sent to a field hospital. After three months of treatment, he was sent to another unit in the direction of Kalinin near the town Staraya Russa, where he was wounded again and was treated again for four months. After the hospital he fought at the front of North-Western where he was wounded for the third time. All the time, between wounded and hospitals, he did the same thing, as part of the landing party they moved along the front line, distracting the enemy with maneuvers and calling fire on themselves. After his third wound in late 1943, he was sent from the military hospital to the infantry school of the Military Infantry Command Staff in the town of Kamyshlov in the Sverdlovsk Region. There he completed a two-year training course within one year. In April 1945, after passing the examinations and receiving the epaulets of a lieutenant, he went back to the West. And although this year was also very difficult, the conditions were hard, but there was also a belief that it was necessary for Victory. No sooner had the young commanders been assigned to units, than the message came about the end of the war. It was a great joy for everyone! The head of the school proclaimed the victory and gave all the young officers two days' leave, which they could spend at their own discretion. During these two days there were no accidents, everyone cheered and rejoiced. I asked my grandfather: "What was the hardest part of the war?" He said that the worst began when bombs fell from the sky, and it was the children of the village from yesterday, numbed with insane fear, with the roar, the fire, the smoke, the flying fragments, the groaning of the wounded and the horror of imminent death. "Were there any happy moments?" I kept asking. Grandfather said: "Were there any happy moments? "I lived after the attack - happy, I slept - joyful, I ate a hearty meal - joyful. I realized that the most insignificant things for us today, when there is pain, death and war, make people happy. I realized how much pain my grandfather and all the veterans of this war had carried on their shoulders. Therefore, May 9th will remain their main holiday. My grandfather died on April 14, 2006. I congratulate all surviving front line soldiers on May 9, the day of victory. I congratulate everyone on the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War!