I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan: Lithuanian Veterans of the Soviet War

By Anna Reich, Paul Robinson and Adrian Bonenberger

I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan includes photographs and commentaries from Lithuanian veterans of the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979–89), addressing the lasting realities of war and its effects on those conscripted to fight. Unflinching first-person accounts give details of training, combat, and the often difficult return to society for military conscripts within the Soviet system. Anna Reich gives insight into the experiences of not only the Lithuanian veterans from the Soviet War in Afghanistan but also veterans from all countries who face similar struggles and challenges.

For three months, Reich interacted with twenty-two veterans in their homes and meeting halls and throughout their daily routines to produce portraits that provide intimate and unvarnished portrayals of their lives and the lasting effects of forced military service in the Soviet army. Often ostracized socially because of their involvement with the Soviet army, the veterans frequently feel invisible: there are no social programs to assist them in their attempts to address post-traumatic stress disorder and assimilate into society, their cause is largely unknown, and the government responsible for their conscriptions no longer exists.

I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan is the culmination of eight years of investigation into the psychological toll of war and trauma. In providing a rarely seen perspective of life after combat, the book intersects with contemporary discourse, specifically the way the US experience in Afghanistan closely mirrors that of the Soviets and the Russian Federation's forced conscription of young men to fight in Ukraine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Release date: May 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781501774553

Book preview

Cover: I Try Not to Think of Afghanistan, LITHUANIAN VETERANS OF THE SOVIET WAR by Anna Reich

I TRY NOT TO THINK

of AFGHANISTAN

LITHUANIAN VETERANS OF THE SOVIET WAR

Anna Reich

Introduction by Paul Robinson

Afterword by Adrian Bonenberger

Title Role: Northern Illinois University Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

For my parents

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Narratives from Twenty-Two Veterans

Algimantas Baranauskas

Vytas Grigas

Rytas Jonas Belevičius

Dmitrij Michailov

Gediminas Šiaurys

Andrej Misko-Špilecki

Gintaras Bernatavičius

Petras Gaškas

Eugenijus Juodvalkis

Virginijus Mitkus

Virginijus Skemundris

Gytis Tamulevičius

Alfredas Kozlovskij

Jonas Vaitkūnas

Sergej Ivanov

Vytas Cironka

Juozas Balkus

Robertas Krikštaponis

Viktor Vladimirov

Vytas Lukšys

Zigmas Stankus

Dalius Didika

Epilogue

Afterword

Notes

Index

An older man wearing a hat, coat, and gloves bends down to lean a carnation against a war memorial. The memorial has a polygonal base, and each side is inscribed with names of Lithuanians who lost their life in the war.

A veteran places a flower on the memorial to the victims of the 1979–89 Soviet War in Afghanistan.

PREFACE

As first Soviet and then post-Soviet states, the Baltic countries experienced dramatic—and often traumatic—social changes over the past 100 years. During the 2013–14 academic year, with the support of a Fulbright fellowship, I employed an ethnographic approach to observing, interviewing, and documenting different demographic groups of Lithuanians, predominantly located in the greater Vilnius area, including survivors of Soviet gulags, Holocaust survivors, children from primary and secondary schools, and veterans from the Soviet War in Afghanistan. In the fall of 2013, I first contacted the Vilnius Association of Afghan War Veterans, requesting their participation in my creative research project about the generational effects of war, cultural trauma, and human rights infringements in Lithuania.

The Soviet Union conscripted thousands of Lithuanians into forced military service; between 1979 and 1989, deployment to Afghanistan was a common assignment. Having varying degrees of awareness about the war, conscripts as young as eighteen were sent on life-altering missions. Upon returning to Soviet-occupied Lithuania, veterans faced social pressures to assimilate into society as effective members of their communities with little support from the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic government and with no acknowledgment of the psychological trauma that so often coincided with combat. Veterans who fought in Afghanistan during the final years of the war came home to a rapidly changing political and social landscape as the Soviet Union began to dissolve. In 1991, Lithuania’s independence was officially recognized, which meant that veterans of the Soviet War in Afghanistan were living in a country that believed their service in the Soviet army was synonymous with service for an enemy combatant. Lithuanian Soviet-Afghan War veterans’ quest for social assistance and support gained additional levels of complexity and slowed an important national dialogue about post-traumatic stress.

Utilizing the email contact information provided on the Vilnius veterans’ association website, I reached out to explain my project and research goals. After receiving preliminary interest from the group, I started conducting interviews with each of the six officers in the association, beginning with the then president, Vytas Lukšys, followed by the then vice president, Dalius Didika. I provided the veterans’ association with a list of questions to allow each participant an opportunity to prepare and reflect in advance of the interview and to determine independently if my questions were addressing topics they were willing to discuss. These questions included:

Please tell me about your early life.

Please explain what happened in the time leading up to your conscription.

Please explain the process of preparing to go to Afghanistan.

What were you thinking and feeling in the days leading up to your deployment, and what did you think was going to happen to you? Why, or more specifically, what shaped these perceptions?

Please explain your time in Afghanistan.

How did you rationalize the reality of your experiences?

Did this experience change you? How?

How does this continue to affect your life today?

How often do you think of these experiences, and are there certain situations that bring back these memories in a particularly strong way?

If you had the choice, would you bypass this experience (i.e., avoid conscription and deployment to Afghanistan)?

Please explain life after your deployment.

The interviews began with introductions and, following completion of the question list, there was typically casual conversation. All interviews were conducted at the headquarters of the Vilnius Association of Afghan War Veterans. Although the interviews were originally designed to be part of a larger project, the veterans’ honesty, vulnerability, and eagerness to participate necessitated a stand-alone investigation.

In an early literature review, I noted that limited published research related to or about veterans from the Soviet War in Afghanistan existed; however, a study published in Psichologija in 2006 caught my attention.¹ This study of 268 Lithuanian men who were conscripted into the Soviet army, including 174 participants who served in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War, analyzed their responses to a fifteen-page questionnaire designed to address a broad range of topics related to military service, mental health, and the transition to civilian life. The results indicated that there was an increased existence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and increased difficulty adapting to civilian life in the Afghan War veterans when compared to their Soviet army comrades who did not see combat. This study contributed to my interest in conducting ethnographic research with the Vilnius community of veterans, with the goal of recording both the commonalities and differences of participants’ experiences in the Soviet War in Afghanistan.

In 2015, I received an Artist as Activist Travel and Research Grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to pursue and support a more thorough and extensive second phase of my investigation. For three months, I interacted with more than twenty Lithuanian veterans in their homes, in meeting halls across the country, and throughout their daily routines to create images that would provide an intimate and unvarnished portrayal of their realities.

The research conducted in 2015 utilized the same methods as that of the previous two years, including the same question list. I attended the Vilnius Association of Afghan War Veterans’ January meeting and outlined my project, explaining that I was seeking voluntary participation from additional members. (By this time the original six participants had described their experiences as interviewees with fellow group members and shared their impressions of the process.) Dalius Didika, who in 2015 was serving a term as association president, was instrumental in coordinating with other association members and providing contact information for willing participants.

In this second phase of my investigation, the interviews were either scribed or video recorded at the request of the interviewee. I made an effort to keep the interviews relaxed and somewhat conversational, allowing each participant to have agency in the overall process by determining when to move from one question to the next, when to pause, and when to ask me questions. Although every person interviewed spoke freely and openly, nearly all requested certain segments be omitted. Naturally, these requests were honored. Omitted content can be broadly divided into three categories: events that took place in Afghanistan, situations that occurred during the transition from the Soviet Union to an independent Lithuania, and KGB recruitment and interaction. One personally touching facet of this second phase was that