It is more than 10 years that in our republic June 29 is marked as the Memory Day of Missing in Action Azatamartiks (liberation soldiers). Every year relatives, friends as well as state and military authorities visit Pantheon Yerabloor (Three Hills) and put wrath on the Missing in Action Memorial.

On May 14, 1992 the youth of Chartar village, Martouni district of Artsakh gathered. It was needed to unite the healthy force of the village, to organize self-defense detachment, resolve defense line, ammunition, military uniform and transport problems. There was a need also to raise the people’s morale, to inspire them, to recall that their proud grandfathers never have retreated in front of the enemy’s superiority.

The potential of the nation can be multiplied if it’s aimed, if it’s concentrated on the axis of such ideas which are inmost for our nation. We have no lack of potential if we are able to direct the mind and the consciousness of the whole society on primary problems and form a united system of values. Today much is spoken about the military-patriotic education of the generation. I think that education must be observed as a versatile and continuing phenomenon which includes moral, aesthetic and patriotic education as patriotism forms on the basis of various virtues. A man can’t be patriotic if he doesn’t love his parents, if he isn’t honest, if he isn’t honourable and conscious…

We were united, we had a strong will. All our interests were combined. We needed an army, we all needed it, and we needed strength to protect our homes, our land, our parents and sons. There was no hesitation, doubt, divergence of opinions. Every Armenian gave the army whatever he could, one gave his knowledge and experience, the other his courage and devotion and the other helped financially. Even women sold their jewellery to buy weapons, rations and clothes. The warm and loving breath of our nation on our backs, we were ready to any deed. Army was so majestic that it had left no place for material things, meanness and personal ambitions. The birth of the national army is a living lesson for us and a behest to the coming generations; when we are together we are invincible.

On November 22nd, the birthday of fighter-volunteer Leonid Azgaldyan, who perished on June 21st, 1992 for liberation of Nagorno Karabakh from the Azeri invaders and was аwarded a posthumous decoration of 1st degree “Battle Cross”, the classroom of Basic military training of the school No. 80 after V.Vagharshyan was named after the hero. In this connection a solemn ceremony was organized, and L.Azgaldyan’s comrades-in-arms told schoolchildren their memories about Leonid.

For RA Justice Colonel Vazgen Arakelyan the 21st of September, Independence Day, was а double festival. In Anapa (Russian Federation) he participated in a solemn ceremony dedicated to the heroes-liberators of that city. Among them was his grandfather, Hero of the Soviet Union Souren Arakelyan, who 68 years ago, on September 21, 1943 covered with his chest enemy’s machinegun’s tube at Kurbatskaya settlement.