And this is the first time I've heard of this College :D

Have you heard of Cambridge University?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge

Oh, it's nothing big. Just the first college founded in England. Founded by Henry the 7th in around 1500... Eventually Cambridge got built around it.

Cambridge yes... never knew that is called this way :D

According to Chris' earlier post yes they would have been happy at $20
Cambridge, Oxford (and many other red bricks like Durham) Are actually a collection of different places (called colleges but not like US colleges which are more like our non-university colleges (confused yet?))

In 3AM I'm confused as hell :D And my ninja skills are off tonight :D

To confuse you further college also means sixth form which is typically years 12 and 13 after secondary school. Secondary school ends at age 16, which is the end of compulsory education. After college we can go onto Uni.

most of which are made of colleges... and ofc each college has a number of schools within it...

Yeah, such a great time playing Hearts of Iron 2 & 3. Spent so many months lol. Game practically has no graphics other than a map and unit sprites/models

Appeal to authority? Yeah, that'll work. Incidentally, French and Greek people have just stated what they think of the whole Austrian school of economics.

Admittedly, my characterization of Ms. Kucherenko as being full of shit was based on the article on modern Russian propaganda I found and you citing her book as proof of the practice of child-soldiering.

The article is cherrypicking in the extreme: it's a 2011 article, We Are From The Future is a 2008 movie with a 2010 sequel both of which went relatively unnoticed by the public, Burnt By The Sun was released in 2010 and 2011 and holy shit is was nominated for an Oscar by the Russian committee, you can't possibly miss that; Bastards is a 2006 movie. Both BBTS and Bastards caused media storms if immense proportions, bringing up discussions of state funding of anti-patriotism, state funding of literally shitting on the Great Patriotic War, embezzlement, software piracy (by way of noted embezzler and BBTS director Mikhalkov who treats the copyright office like his personal noble's estate) and of course child soldiers.

However, looks like Kucherenko isn't too wrong, just pop-lit-sensationalist ("Is Obama a secret Nazi Muslim libertarian communist squidperson?").

Look, a customer review: And an Oxford backscratchy paywall thing: So, cherry-picking: on one hand, we aren't supposed to trust the veterans, because they supposedly regurgitate bullshit, on the other hand, an unidentified "Aleksei" is perfectly quotable and dependable. Also, Aleksei is a 15-year-old partisan (guerrilla fighter), that is, someone stuck on the occupied territories, old enough to be a slave for the Nazis, choosing to run away and fight instead. Not a soldier. Not a "let's join the army" airhead who watched Little Red Devils one time too many.

I don't find anything particularly horrible in that when a kid's mom is run through with a bayonet, he runs away to join the partisans, relays messages, steals supplies, etc. Except, you know, the whole mom getting run through with a bayonet thing.

I hope Afgantsy by Rodric Braithwaite (former British ambassador who went on record praising Gorbachov and thus can't be disqualified as a krazy kommie) is an accessible enough source.

Also, 1350 women in LCSOF (Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces) were awarded military honors. LCSOF consisted of Ministry of Defense army regiments, KGB border guards, KGB (Kaskad, Omega) and Internal Affairs (Kobalt) Spetsnaz squads, and high command (MoD and KGB officers). That's it. Soviet civilians working in Afghanistan weren't a part of LCSOF.

The draft law of 1967 excluded women from being drafted. However, women could still volunteer and receive military education, the lack of opportunity for which previously limited their advancement in ranks. The 1969 Army and Navy uniform rules specified uniforms for women officers.

Besides, I did miss the crux of your argument. Specifically, why allowing able-bodied women to volunteer is as bad as forcing children to fight?

Don't have Afgantsy, so you might have to sum it up for me. I have zero doubt that women served within the Soviet army, and performed critical roles within it. However you'll have to excuse me if I still find myself looking for proof that women served within the "poor bloody infantry" in Afghanistan. Women have been in pretty well every modern military since at least WWII, but they served in support roles. They did (and often still do) clerical work, served in the signals, worked as nurses, and other non combat roles. I also don't doubt that there were female soldiers involved in combat during Afghanistan. The Russians were fighting a guerrilla army. The "non combat" units were targeted and I have no doubt that female soldiers in the Soviet army found themselves having to defend themselves and their positions. There is still a huge difference between defending yourself, and joining an elite squad of commandos jumping off a helicopter to fight aliens.

Regarding the decorations, I wonder how many of those were unit citations?

*Edit* I'm also not trying to say that the Soviets did massive recruitment drives through Jr. High schools during WWII like the Nazi's did. I agree that child soldiers were never officially sanctioned by Stavka. I also agree that some pretty extreme circumstances led to children joining partisan units, I even agree that many of those kids also served in non combat roles as runners, and messengers, not all of them did though. The point remains though that there were still a lot of Russian kids who picked up guns and used them to shoot people.

I'm waiting for you to say who is 3rd party in the System Shock problem :D

No game on Desura requires the client. They used to require it to install, but now they host standalone game installers too. You don't ever need to use the client.