Our Eighteenth Autumn

The autobiographical story of the writer Nikolai Andreevich Vnukov tells about his last school summer, about the first brutal battle he and his former classmates had to face. Seventeen-year-old boys fight like heroes, and during breaks between battles, they write letters to their mothers and remember how they used to swim, dance at school evenings, and go to the mountains for cornelian cherries. Sunny days of childhood, peaceful life still so close — and already so infinitely, irretrievably far away… And adult life looks at them with the stern gaze of war.
Poignantly simple, far from any pathos, the lines of the story remain forever in memory. This must be remembered. This must be known by those who are entering adult life today.