Badly wounded Russian soldiers, some on crutches, are being sent to fight. Russians say it's because of huge losses and shortages of personnel, as well as bureaucratic mismanagement.

Nothing to do with anything, I just feel like some levity is needed:

So: I had a little guy in my Dwarf Fortress game who was a master at combat. All his physical stats were extraordinary, and he loved war. He was in the military and excelled at it; my military saw a lot of action and he became legendary in several fighting abilities. Then there was a great disaster which led to the decimation of my military, and a period of several years hiding in the fortress with all the doors locked until the goblin army got bored and went away on its own. He survived the disaster, but he was badly wounded. Like real messed up.

The fortress survived, and gradually things came back to life, but this dude was crippled. He had to walk with a crutch, and had nerve damage. He became a cook, at which he also excelled, and his excellent meals became another key fixture of the fortress. I would sometimes sell barrels and barrels of them to trade caravans when I was short of other stuff, at huge prices. But. He always had unhappiness because of wanting to be able to get back to fighting. It was clearly a non starter of an idea, but it bothered me somewhat that the guy had been through so much and now had any kind of sadness in his daily life.

Finally, during a period of needing some additional troops, I finally said fuck it and put him back in the military. I gave him a battleaxe to go with his crutch, honestly not really sure how it would work out. His physical stats were excellent but the fuckin dude's got a useless leg. I don't think this is going to work. But it's what he wants to do, and who am I to tell him no?

I watched him close during his first encounter in combat. He wasn't good for much, to be honest. It was clear that his physical ability was impaired. He kept falling down. Until, somehow, he lost control of his axe, and then he picked up his wooden crutch and BEAT THE FUCK out of his adversary with the crutch. Like absolutely took him the fuck apart.

I don't understand the combat engine well enough to say exactly how it works, but it seemed clear that the answer was to give the guy a steel crutch and have that be his weapon. He kept breaking wooden crutches across enemies' faces and falling down, which is an issue in combat obviously, so I didn't feel like it was safe to continue to let that happen and have him maybe come to harm. I made a bunch of steel crutches, and tried to manipulate things so he would pick one up and start using it, but I never quite got it to happen. I think I gave up the whole endeavor and put him back in the kitchen. But if someone can tell me how to assign a particular crutch to a particular wounded dwarf, I'd love to give him a brand new indestructible crutch and let him hobble his way into battle and go the fuck to town and finally come into his own.