“Soyka”: “Everything was calm at home, and here I get into hell”
Oksana Danylo (“Soyka,” which means “Jay” in Ukrainian), a 28-year-old nurse from Lviv Oblast, says she has dreamed of wearing a uniform for as long as she can remember.
When Russia’s war against Ukraine escalated into a full-scale one, Oksana decided to mobilize immediately, but getting into the Armed Forces of Ukraine turned out to be not as easy as it seemed. “I got the impression that those who do not want to fight are taken. And those who come voluntarily are rejected.”
After many unsuccessful attempts to get to the front, she came across an ad: “PFVMH is looking for a nurse for rotation,” and immediately applied.
At the front, in the hot Bakhmut direction, volunteer medics worked 24/7. “Sometimes, we didn’t sleep or eat normally for several days. There was no time. There was no way. But I was happy. That was it. That’s what I wanted,” Soyka recalls.
Five days after arriving, a missile hit the neighboring house. That was the first time she saw that death had come very close to her, but she did not yet understand that this was the turning point after which she would become different. “I’ll find out about PTSD in about 4-6 months. Until then, I’ll think that, in principle, everything is fine,” says Oksana.
