When Mortar Fire Became Part of the Morning

One of the most unsettling parts of Petro’s account of Ukrainian New York is the familiarity of danger. He recalls the answer to the morning’s firing arriving an hour or two later. In his telling, mortar rounds had become part of a pattern the soldiers recognised.

An hour or two later, they would answer with 82 mm mortar rounds, about ten of them. That was how they “woke us up.” And that was how the day began. Nobody flinched at those sounds anymore. They had become part of the morning, like the cold dew on a body armour vest or the steam rising from coffee, if you were lucky enough to have any.

From Petro’s personal account of a day in Ukrainian New York, February 2022.

The ordinary details beside the danger

Petro places the sound of mortar fire beside cold dew on body armour and steam rising from coffee. Those details make the memory tangible. They belong to a body that feels cold, waits for warmth and still has a full day ahead.

His description of people no longer flinching should not be mistaken for a claim that the danger had disappeared. It shows how he remembers repeated exposure: something frightening becoming familiar enough to enter the language of a morning routine.

That contrast gives this paragraph its force. A cup of coffee remains a cup of coffee, even when it is surrounded by war. Remembering such a detail allows readers to see a person rather than an anonymous figure in uniform. Petro’s homepage continues that personal story.

Read Petro’s story and find ways to help on the homepage. You can also share his homepage with others.