Bitter feeling… from an award

Dmytro Denysiuk from Rudka-Kozynska received a parcel from his military unit before the meeting with former participants of ATO and their relatives, which was going to be held in the raion center. Alina Kryvoviaziuk, Chairman of the ATO Participants’ Parents Association opened the parcel at his request. And it turns out that this has sweetened the bitter feeling the man got after being sent the award like it was some ordinary thing from a shop... Seeing the parcel’s content, everyone began congratulating Dmytro. Rozhyshche mayor saluted the man on the occasion and the local military commissioner was asked by Kryvoviaziuk to praise the former soldier on the concert to the Ukrainian Army day. It is important, Kryvoviaziuk says, to have people know that their local citizen has been distinguished with this extraordinary award. “For these guys had been defending our peace, while we were quietly sleeping at our homes,” she said; Kryvoviaziuk herself knows what the family members of ATO participants are going through, as her own son had fought in many hot spots in the east, was wounded seriously and is now receiving treatment in Germany...

Dmytro Denysiuk is a common young man from the village of Rudka-Kozynska. Natalia Herasymchuk, secretary of the village council, speaks about meeting him recently. Having finally received the documents that confirmed his combatant status, he came to the village council in order to appeal for a plot of land appropriate to his situation. Because of his injury and concussion he has little command of one hand, and it is hard for him to write longer words... Dmytro is taciturn, says Herasymchuk, and because of that reluctantly tells of his fighting experience. In the village, he and his family are known as very industrious, responsible, and honest people. The secretary remembers that one thing made the man worry: that he has received his combatant papers having fought on the frontline, but in the future, he thought, many would be equalized in this status, because every war has not only brave people, but shrewd people as well... Together with Alina Kryvoviaziuk’s son he served in the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade. Under constant shelling he and his comrades had held the Ukrainian ground. On December 15 of the past year he was gravely wounded, multiple fragments were stuck in his head. The help was provided not only by the family: parents, sister, wife and son; but also by the volunteers. Following a proposal by the activists of “People’s self-defense” in Rozhyshche, locals got together and bought an automatic washing machine for the soldier’s parents.

The Cross For Courage is a distinction of the President of Ukraine. Those awarded by these distinctions – the Star For Courage and the Cross For Courage are officially equal to the awardees of the Order For Courage. Certainly, it would be fair if the soldier from Volyn collected his deserved award in a ceremonial atmosphere, receiving gratitude for heroism and honest service to the Fatherland – not via some common mail delivery. It is good that Rozhyshche had people who tried to remedy the situation, but many retain the bitter feeling from such an award in a parcel.