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Leanna, the wife of a Soviet Veteran of the war in Afghanistan, was assigned the task of caring for my daily needs for the five weeks I worked in Moscow in 1990. Her husband had been a tank commander in Afghanistan and suffered severely from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He spent a lot of time working in a new intourist restaurant and when he was at home, he would try to spend as much time as possible with their two-year-old son. We communicated little, as any talk of the war, either his or mine, would send him into the darkened streets in search of alcohol.

Leanna, on the other hand, kept a good home and worked part time as a shopper, getting paid to stand in lines to purchase food and other goods for clients too old or busy to shop for themselves. The flat where they lived was on the fifth floor of an apartment building where there was no elevator or hot water. Two of the three rooms leaked when it rained but this woman was never without a smile. She made sure I was fed and had a ready supply of hot water on the stove with which to bathe. Times were hard and she worried for her husband but she loved life and would talk nonstop even though we could not always understand each other. In the five weeks I was there, I only saw her husband twice; a day or two after my arrival, and then the evening before I left, he appeared unannounced, shook my hand and hugged me for a time while he cried. He stepped back with a smile, called me his older brother, then handed me his entire Dress Uniform and disappeared again into the darkened streets.