On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the National Archives of Armenia has published three volumes of “The Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. testimonies of survivors» in Armenian, Turkish and Russian languages, creation of an electronic database of victims of the Armenian Genocide is under process. The continuation of this will be the publication of legal documents on the Catholicosate of Sis, church possessions of Western Armenia.

In 2001, after the transfer to the reserve, I was offered to teach the subject of basic military training at school, and I gladly agreed. By decision of the Minister of Defence, I was allowed to teach in another school, which is an unprecedented fact. I was already working in the school no.108, when director of the school no.60 Alvard Arakelyan invited me to them, because the discipline in the school was very low. For a while I was able to change the situation.

A year ago, Major Sargis Stepanyan in repelling the enemy’s subversive action, when he wanted to take out the body of his colleague from the mined area, was injured during mine explosion and deprived of two feet and one hand.
And this year, Major Stepanyan lifted a 32-pound dumbbell 5 times, thereby setting a record that will be registered in the “Armenian Heroes Book” and will be filed with the application for registration in the “Guinness Book of Records”.

In the early 1990s, during the liberation war, many civil hospitals in Artsakh and Armenia turned into hospitals. In Yerevan Children’s Hospital on the Muratsan street a special section was allocated for receiving and treating the wounded during the fighting operations. Subsequently, this hospital became a military medical institution number one in our country – Central Military Hospital of the RA Defense Ministry.

This is Zem (from the word “zemlyak”). He is on intelligence service, special forces captain, has a medal “For courage”. The man, who many times penetrated behind enemy lines, performs the most responsible tasks of command, a man who is always on the verge of life and death. This is the service of the scout. From a scout no one can “pull out” anything if he did not want to…

The most important thing is to be informed that in the newly minted team is only possible by working 24 hours and implementing vigilant monitoring. The military leader must know what is happening in every corner of the structure headed by him. If there is a conflict between the military, the commander must understand it, listen to all sides, punish those responsible. In every man there is something good. It is necessary to help a person to become good. Our Minister has a very good saying: rather than to educate the other, educate yourself, and all the others will be educated by your example. It may not sound pompous, but I am the center, the core of the military unit. The face of the military is my face!

I have had many opportunities to see the power of our army, to become sure of its power. I saw and felt the high morale of the Armenian soldiers and officers who are on the border. But I never was so confident on the issue of power of the army, so clearly did not realize the power of unity of the people and the military, as in the day of the meeting with two peasants from the village Berdavan…
Here is great respect for the military, they always want to exchange a few words with them. Grandfathers Ando and Hendo were waiting for us – me and deputy commander Lieutenant Colonel Badalyan.