Three and a Meat...

I am pondering recent events where our country seems to be swinging in favor of Russia by negotiating a peace in Ukraine that grants them what they want. My whole life time America has stood against Communism and I think we should still. I looked back on photos I made in New York City in Spring of 2019 at a Ukrainian Festival and wondered how the people in them have been affected by the war.    

 In thinking about the war I thought about a story a WW2 vet I had as a nursing home patient. He was 98 years old at the time, an old Sgt. from Pine Bluff, Arkansas and his duty was something to do with supplies and feeding the troops. He was a member of the 69th Infantry Division, the unit that made first made contact with Russian troops at the Elbe River on April 25, 1945. Coincidentally those were Ukrainian troops. 

The old Sgt. told me how the Russians were invited to the mess tent. He said, "they were a different kind of soldier, rural peasants, uneducated, crude, wild and you could tell that life was cheap to them." They lined them up for chow and when a serving of food was put on their plates they went to a seat and began hungrily devouring it. The American food line was much like the buffets and steam tables you seen in our restaurants of today. The war would be over in a matter of days and supplies for Americans were plentiful. It had to be explained to the Russians who were used to little or nothing in the way of comforts that you go through the line and get a meat and three sides, don't forget bread and coffee. They had never seen such bounty and had been used to the single serving meal. 

Someone told me the other day, "those of us doing like we are supposed to are going to be alright." It's my understanding that Russian soldiers in WW2 did as they were supposed to to defeat the Nazis suffering 26 million civilian and military causalities. It was a war of attrition and it seems like Russian tactics have not changed much today as the war in Ukraine continues. The count varies according to your source with the high end being a possible 839,000 total Russian causalities.  

Like my Sgt. friend told me, life for the Russians is cheap. I find it strange that our country which values the Sanctity of Life sides with one where life has little value. Lots of things to unpack from this.  Men who ate in that American mess tent have probably lost great grand children in the Ukrainian war and to continue with more Sanctity of Life issues think how all our unborn descendants will be affected by future climate change.

I'd say these are forces we should oppose but like they told me, "those of us doing like we are supposed to are going to be alright."