After graduation from a secondary school Vasily Gordeenko was going to enter the Pinak Art College. But in the first days of the Great Patriotic War – in June of 1941 – the 17-year-old fellow of Khoiniki District had plans to go to the front, but being turned down, he found himself in the partisan detachment in Kalinkovichi District. He went on a reconnaissance and blew up the enemy’s military w tanks and equipment. When the liberation of the Gomel Oblast began, he was called up in the Red Army. Being a member of the machinegun crew, he freed Warsaw, and then he reached from the Vistula to the Elbe and took part in the in the capture of Berlin.