The Kids in Uniform

[Mehti Safarov]

Taken from the Internet.
The Order of the Red Star young recipient, liberator of Yugoslavia- with local residents.

[Aleksander P]

Please do post more. I'm very interested in these Sons of the Regiment, who look very alert. Where can I get more info on them? Are all 3 of those medals on the 17 yo the same order?

I will try my best to. I really can't point out where to find information just about them, but read books about the Eastern Front. For example in Ivan's War, a book that I read sometime ago, the author mentioned them.

The 3 orders are 1st, 2nd and 3rd class. The 1st class of Order of Glory are pretty rare (2,620 awarded) and when you gained all three variants of the orders, you would be titled "Cavalier of the Order of Glory".

[Aleksander P]

Taken from the Internet.
The Order of the Red Star young recipient, liberator of Yugoslavia- with local residents.

The same boy in the photo, that I just posted but only from a different angle. Very interesting and I haven't stumbled across this version before .

[harryamb2]

a shame to try and turn children into killers.

[Aleksander P]

War truly is a nasty business. Usually sons of the regiment we're looked after by the RKKA regiments, after they had lost their parents and homes and usually to my understanding they weren't directly involved in combat, but of course that happened too and experiencing war is never a positive thing.

[Mehti Safarov]

Suvorov Military School uniform.
Order of Glory, Medal of Combat Merit, Medal of Valour.
Bad Wound ribbon.

[Mehti Safarov]

a shame to try and turn children into killers.

Please note, kids under 18 have never been drafted! As Aleksander already mentioned, very few of them have ever seen a real fight. Vast majority were the orphans being just a wards with the units and serving with the headquarters, field canteens etc. - i.e. camp followers. One can understand the motivation of those few who were allowed to combat fighting an enemy who killed their parents. Therefore this is definitely not the same case as with the boy soldiers with the African warlords. However, I do agree, we will never ever wish every single child to experience the war.

[Dom]

Suvorov Military School uniform.
Order of Glory, Medal of Combat Merit, Medal of Valour.
Bad Wound ribbon.

It seems rather Defense Caucasus ? On the right his comrade is a member of the Pioneers as evidenced by his red kerchief with ring .

[Mehti Safarov]

You're right - it's rather greenish, not gray/blue - i.e. Caucasus