More than 450 young people took the military oath in the Vitebsk 103rd Guards Separate Mobile Brigade

Vitebsk will become home for the next eighteen months for the conscripts from Pridvinye, as well as Mogilev and Minsk regions. They have been preparing for this important event – taking the oath – for about a month. During this time, more than 240 young men have already made their first parachute jump. Others still have to learn the advantages of service in the airborne forces – to see their native horizons from the height of the clouds more than once. Service in the 103rd mobile brigade will teach the guys true courage, resilience, and patriotism. The brigade has raised more than one generation of war heroes, whose names are remembered today. It has also raised real men in peaceful life, for whom army lessons have helped to understand the importance of family, the great destiny of women, and the inviolability of their country's borders.

At the solemn oath-taking ceremony, the servicemen were greeted by the Commander of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, Major General Oleg Belokonev. The ceremony was attended by the Chairman of the Vitebsk regional organization "Brotherhood" of the Belarusian Union of Veterans of the War in Afghanistan, retired Lieutenant Colonel Valerian Matskevich, and representatives of the administration of the Oktyabrsky district of Vitebsk. Father Alexander, the rector of the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, located on the territory of the unit, blessed everyone for military service. Let us also wish the young men good luck, and their families – patience and peace of mind. The separation will not be long, and the sons will return matured and strong. And some of them, perhaps, will find their calling and forever link their lives with the armed forces, remaining on guard of security, fulfilling their military and civil duty.

Olga MASLOVSKAYA.
Photo by Dmitry OSIPOV.