IT WAS A GLORIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL BIRTHDAY

29 years ago, in 1992, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia was established on January 28, 1992. Vazgen Sargsyan was appointed minister.

29 years ago, in 1992, on January 28, the first subdivision of the Armenian Armed Forces was formed.

The birth of the Armenian Army was officially registered …

And it was the birth of the glorious and beautiful and so similar to the birth of heroic Vahagn and modern Vahagns, Tigran the Greats, that were Vardan and Garegin, Gevorg and Tatul, Davit, Hovhannes, Petros, Movses and so on, who, according to Yeghishe, who tells the story of Vardanants, “had the same willing heart and were armed with the same weapon.”

“With the same weapon”, which was the love for the homeland and freedom, and the anger against injustice, and the feeling of just revenge for the bloodshed, deprivation and humiliation. And “with the same willing heart”, because the fight belonged to everyone, and everyone willingly went to the battlefield and were united. They were volunteers, freedom fighters, Yerkrapahs, and the Commander would say later: “One of the greatest achievements of Yerkrapah, if not the greatest achievement, is that he covered the borders of the republic with his body and blood and gave an opportunity to create an army in the country with his blood.”

It was created and the Artsakh liberation war became the furnace of its formation. The difficult and at the same time heroic struggle was approaching knock by knock, attack by attack, victory by victory. It has been recorded and we can accurately restore the historical moment. It was on May 8, 1992in the evening, exactly 20 days before the ratification of the great birth of the Armenian army, the fighting element of the Armenian self-defense forces was spreading by the force of the “ninth wave”, and the Commander announced. “What is happening in Artsakh is a miracle.”

The birth of the Armenian army took place at the same time in the trials of war and the first difficult, responsible steps of state building. State and army. It was the realization of the great national dream, which required a surge of forces, collective will, united spirit. Depriving himself, the nation gave to his army, like a parent to his own child, his last chance, everything he had and could give. And that army became a source of pride and excitement.

The great Tumanyan … He was the poet of all Armenians, wise with the fate of all Armenians, embracing the centuries-old secret of the survival of his people, a collective spirit that turned into flesh and blood, and what a great dream he had to have a strong state and a powerful army. He has a poem, “The Armenian Army”, dated February 19, 1920. According to unconfirmed rumors, at the same time it was published in the “Banaki Or ” newspaper that had lived one day, which did not reach us, but we received the autograph of the poem and decades later the 1989 issue of the Hayreniki Dzain  newspaper was published in the November 1 issue.

It was the period of national awakening, and Tumanyan’s poem was needed. It is also necessary today to understand how the Armenian man wanted to see the Armenian army in crucial times for his people. The poem is the expression of his great dream of having a powerful, unshakable army.

Thus, the whole poem, which at that time, yes, was the expression of Tumanyan’s great dream, the desire to have a victorious army, which his people would make a reality decades later.

The Armenian army was born from victory. That victory was fought and hardened by those who fell with a brave death, and by those who, according to the happy memory of Vazgen I, “prevented death with victory.” They were simple, ordinary boys, girls, women and old men, they were going to study, they were going to start a family, they were going to have a house and a grandchild, but they went to fight because they had a homeland and a national dignity to defend. They had memories to preserve, and the call of the homeland sounded like a message to them. The message from brave ancestors, passed down through the centuries and never extinguished, at gunpoint, if your land is endangered. Your sacred land …

The Armenian army was born to defend that land sanctified by blood and struggle. “The frontier is strong, their weapon.”

The Armenian army is 29 years old today. The army did not have a cradle, it was born in a trench, in attacks, in a border defense position, with a weapon in its hand.

“The first point of the unwritten laws of the mountains states: be the protector of your hearth, your house, your country. “Your life is expensive, but it is not more expensive than the honor of the homeland,” said General Hamazasp Babajanyan.

The Armenian army is one of the most important achievements of our people, the object of its pride, the guarantee of security. When his first unit was formed, no one could have imagined how a unit of patriotic boys would become a modern army.

The Armenian army is one of the symbols of our independent statehood, a tireless taste of the efforts of the state and the people.The brilliant result of the alloy.

By NORAYR MIKAYELYAN