Notes of a Very Young Man

The little book contains no names, not even that of its owner, though there is evidence that he had some connection with Vitebsk, in Byelorussia, and had served with Soviet forces in Hungary. He was a dead Soviet paratrooper, whose personal journal had fallen into the hands of anti-Soviet Afghans.

The notebook included colored pen sketches and, most poignantly, several touching poems--a parachutist reflecting on the ever present nearness of death. The following translations, made from a photocopy of the notebook, are the work of TIME Staff Writer David Aikman and Reporter-Researcher John Kohan:

I AM GOING AWAY

I am going away, said the lad to

her through his grief, Not for a long time. Wait for me and I will

return.

He went off, never met up with His first spring. He came home In a soldier's metal coffin.

He did not live beyond the hour

before dawn.

He fell on his chest and closed

up the ground with his

wounds, He fell on his chest not during war but in peace, When spring ignites the stars of love for us.

Mother sobs and father Stands like a shadow. For them he was just a very young man.

And how many of them, who have

not

Yet made the first step in life Have come home in a soldier's

metal coffin ?

And once, when he went walking

with his girl, He gave her flowers And played a song for her on his

guitar, And even in the instant when the snow grew stale, when the thaw came,

He wrote down in blood the name of that little girl.

The wind scattered the flurrying

snow above the grave.

That girl has gone off with

another lad, That girl who promised, "I will

wait."

The snow has thawed, the name

has disappeared with it.

THE JUMP

The parachutist stands in the

doorway of the plane, He looks down below at the

villages and the forests.

There goes the siren and the

flashing of the green light.

The "Jump!" signal light is for

you And already as if embraced by

storms, You are flying violently to the

ground

Coming up to meet you. Through your tears you see the

butt of your rifle And canopies like white

flowers.

The canopy has opened up behind

the shroudlines.

The ground below is in a fog But over it,

It's as if you suddenly take in Half of Europe at a glance.

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