Of the many stories I was told, the one that stands out was how information travels during War with its total communication blackout. The train would pull into a small village, at night, to take on coal and water. A local emissary would meet the train and ask if it was true there was a doctor on board. How could they possibly have known? My mother, a native Russian, would grab my father's hand and say, "let's go Pop." They were taken to a meeting place, usually a Russian Orthodox church, and inside were waiting dozens and dozens of people needing medical attention. My mother, who was a nurse, would go ahead of my father, analyzing & diagnosing each "patient." Delivering babies, setting broken bones, and attending to all sorts of sicknesses and diseases, they had to work fast as the troop train waited for no one when it was ready to move on.

Medical services was not the only negotiable "legal tender" used on their trek. Sometimes, to get a meal from a small brigade of troops, holding, hugging, and passing around my brother (born in `42) from soldier to soldier was the price of a meal. Other times, to cross one of the few remaining, unbombed bridges over the Volga, a smile, a wink, and a hint of what would be waiting for the lonely guard after his duty ended, did the trick.