There's a reason most movies that feature "turning the other cheek" are porn. Revenge sells better than forgiveness. When a supervillain kills your spouse and banishes your children to the spider dimension, it doesn't make for a very good film if you just move to the forest and think about stuff quietly for a few years. Of course, in real life, few people are determined enough to actually draft insane, Tarantino-style revenge schemes and unleash them on the world.
Namely, these few people.
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Mariya Oktyabrskaya Avenges Her Husband By Buying A Tank And Terrorizing Nazis
Via ww2-weapons.com
In 1943, Soviet housewife Mariya Oktyabrskaya got a letter from the military informing her that her husband had died in the Battle of Kiev two years earlier. Mariya didn't shed any tears over her loss. The only thing she wanted to shed was Nazi blood. So she sold all her belongings and contacted the military with an offer: She would honor her husband's memory by buying them a brand new T-34 tank to wreck Nazi shit.
She had one stipulation: She would be the one driving it.
Via Lock, Stock, and History
It's a sitcom-worthy setup, but Mariya intended to be the only one laughing.
The State Committee of Defense smelled a juicy propaganda stunt and agreed. After a few months of training, 38-year-old Mariya rolled onto the battlefield in her personal tank, which she had named the Fighting Girlfriend.
Via Badassweekoftheweek.com
Motto: "No, really, I'm fine."
Male officers initially suspected that her vagina would impair her tank skills. However, they soon learned never to express doubt in an angry woman controlling several tons of mechanized death, as they witnessed her tear through the Second Battle of Smolensk at the head of her unit, leaving a cloud of smoke and Nazi bits in her wake. She handled her tank like a veteran, driving headfirst into enemy fire and tearing through the opposition with ease. A few weeks later in another battle, a German shell broke her tank's tracks and the Fighting Girlfriend got separated from the rest of the unit. She and her crew jumped out of the tank and started repairing it in the middle of the battle, keeping the enemy at bay with their guns.
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