Image talk:Soviet child soldier.jpg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Following some discussion on the Military use of children talk page, I'm curious to know whether this boy was an active soldier or rather more of a mascot for his ship/unit. Does anyone know the history of this image or more details about the boy? Lisiate 05:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this particular boy, but I have read a number of Soviet stories that orphans who refused to leave in some cases were unofficially "adopted" by military regiments. According to those stories (to reflect on it now, full of propaganda) sometimes these children willingly performed military missions (such as reconnaissance) using their innocent looks, or small height. HTH. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 07:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, user Pudeo suggested the same thing in the talk page to the Child soldier article. I agree that this was probably the likely situation but it would be interesting to hear from anyone with some more concrete information. Lisiate 01:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)