Sorry, No Good Guys in Ukraine

The most important thing for Americans to know about the Russia-Ukraine War is that 

THERE ARE NO GOOD GUYS!

It's easy to hate Putin. Too easy, really, because it hides ugly facts of the war, like:

There really are Ukrainian Nazis. Not sympathizers, not kinda-like Nazis, real freakin' Nazis. They are front-line troops and senior commanders and policy makers. They are waging war with the money and things we give them. God DAMN them. What does that make US? Their enablers?

The cute, comic, puppet leader is only for show. He cleans up nice and he is the face of Ukraine. His is a face of TV make-up, reading lines written by someone else. His pretty face and pretty wife confuse us into thinking, "Oh, we have to help that poor guy, don't we?" 

So we do. $130 billion that we know of and no end in sight. And no accountability for our assistance. No auditing whatsoever. "It's a war against RUSSIA! Trust us."

Mind you, there are good men and women in Ukraine and, yes, in Russia. They are Tevye and his village in Fiddler on the Roof. They are farmers and builders and workers and makers who are kept from innovation and production because so many others get a taste of their hard work, just a taste, along the way. 

That's the way the Mafia runs things, with one big exception. Only the local Mafia bag man gets a taste and he passes it along. In Russia, every person in authority gets a taste. That's why huge projects fail. Like the Olympic Village in Sochi, GEORGIA. Like missing submarines. Like lost manned space projects. So many of the last, but you don't get to hear about them. That news is forbidden.

Good people are being killed or marginalized. Men and women with good hearts, good goals, lovers of peace and good will. They are terrorized into silence. I can't blame them.

And Russia, I'm looking at YOU now. Deranged, muddled thoughts of the past are made national policy by one twisted, unbelievably rich sicko. Just one. Rich simply because he stole everything. He is cautiously supported by a lunatic fringe of blood-sucking, self-enriching, would-be dictators who want to be him. That's how Russia under Putin works.

There are many good men and women in Russia and the former Soviet Union. They are terrified. 

I know because I lived among them and I love some of them, fine people, ex-Communists all. I have a friend who spent time in the gulags for harboring anti-Soviet sentiments. That came with plenty of beatings. Good man, though.

Putin is rounding up the usual suspects after Prighozin's folly in fake-attacking Moscow. 

Really? Attack Moscow? Executions will follow, of course. Lots of them. No defense will be allowed. There will be show trials, just like in the 1930s. Prigozhin will die. There is no dissent in the Russian military or civilian life. If you think you see some, you are seeing a lie.

But that's not enough. Putin has to further terrorize the average Russian citizen. Just like in Fiddler. His citizenry already has nothing. They feel themselves well off if they have things that every American takes for granted. Food, for instance. Clothes. An apartment. Detergents. Medicines. A car. 

All while Putin has the biggest and best of everything. Because it doesn't cost him anything, except the money he stole.

Have you seen Putin's 463-foot yacht? It has gold toilet paper. 

Think of Tevye again. Bidi bidi bum.

 

D-Day 2023

I last posted my respects to the men - and women, as Bob Welch reminded us in American Nightingale - of D-Day 1944 on June 6, 2010, calling it Back Page News. This year, not do much as a single mention anywhere in our local rag, the Eugene Register-Guard, not even on the back page. Nothing on TV news, either. What a comment on our national conscience.  What a disgrace.  

To us in America, raised on US-centric WW II history, this was the critical event of WW II in Europe. The beginning of the end, and maybe it was. But that gives short shrift to the Soviet Union's sacrifices. We don't like them anymore but back in the day they killed 9 out of 10 German soldiers lost in the war. Russia and its contemporaries remember them and honor them. Us, not so much.

We saw Nancy Reagan placing flowers on the grave of Gen. Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., in 1994 while President Reagan looked on. I remember. There is no more talk of major celebrations in Normandy or elsewhere ever again. Their time has passed, although there are living survivors. Today, the living and dead veterans get not so much as a nod. Anywhere, from anyone.

 

 

 

TRJr deserves a special mention.  Gassed and wounded at Soissons in 1918, he had to overcome strenuous resistance to be in the invasion at all. His commanding officer reluctantly OK'd it but thought he was sending him to his death. Oldest man in the invasion, second man off the lead boat in the first wave (give that some thought), only general to land with the first wave, only man to serve with his son on D-Day.  

 

Medal of Honor for his actions on D-Day, one of only two sets of fathers and sons to win the Medal of Honor, along with Arthur and Douglas MacArthur.  

As successive waves came ashore, he walked around under fire encouraging them to move inland and he personally led assaults against German positions, just as he did when he first came ashore. He was admirably portrayed by Henry Fonda in the movie The Longest Day. He is a man well worth remembering.

 

Here's his Medal of Honor citation:

 

For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, in France. After 2 verbal requests to accompany the leading assault elements in the Normandy invasion had been denied, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt's written request for this mission was approved and he landed with the first wave of the forces assaulting the enemy-held beaches. He repeatedly led groups from the beach, over the seawall and established them inland. His valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack and his complete unconcern at being under heavy fire inspired the troops to heights of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, rallying men around him, directed and personally led them against the enemy. Under his seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership, assault troops reduced beach strong points and rapidly moved inland with minimum casualties. He thus contributed substantially to the successful establishment of the beachhead in France.

Only three other men won the Medal of Honor on D-Day, and one on June 7.  Four of the five were awarded posthumously, including TRJr who died of a heart attack on July 12, 1944, the same day he was promoted to major general.

TRJr is seldom remembered any more, just like the rest of our D-Day and WW II veterans. But today is a good day to remember and thank him and them.

"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."
-- Rudyard Kipling

 

Achievements, not deaths, are the legacy of Normandy but it is death that dominates our thoughts of them today.  For each recorded act of heroism and sacrifice and death there were hundreds more that went unobserved or are forgotten. Each of them died to keep us free. It is our shame that they appear to our children only as roles in video games instead of in stories of heroism and sacrifice that we have taught them.  

Gentlemen and ladies of D-Day, thank you for giving my family and me our freedom and our future.

* * * * *

"We’ll start the war from right here!"
Teddy Roosevelt, Jr, upon learning that his unit had landed a mile from their designated beach on D-Day.