I just received this missive from a good friend to both me and my daughter, Ellie. It makes a good point and I'd like to share it.
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Hi Phil —
I’ve been following your posts but I wanted to give you an insight you may not be aware of. I have a Ukrainian friend who lives not far from me. She was raised in an eastern border town and her family came here about 15 years ago. She still has many friends there fighting the war.
She works closely with a Ukrainian group in the U.S. and started fundraising here at the beginning of the war. At that time they were needing medical equipment…blood clotting powders, bandages, surgical equipment. Then it was heat sensors. (I had to laugh, you could actually get items through Amazon. Can you picture an Amazon van driving through Kiev?)
One night my friend sent me a message and asked me to get my son’s input [he's an officer in the Army National Guard] on some battle helmets she was looking to buy. Huh? I sent him the info. He told her what to look for in a battle helmet, the best grades, etc. So my friend did her homework and settled on three different kinds and would he make sure these would be the best for the Ukrainian soldiers? Again, he was happy to help and she ordered several hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of helmets.
Do you see where this is going? This war is being fought by people all over the world. The money, other aid, the battle gear…without a strong Ukrainian network world-wide, things would be much much worse.
I was at a dinner at the university about a month ago and there was a young doctoral student from Ukraine seated at our table. I asked him a few questions about his family’s situation and he said his mother was able to get out in the first few days of the invasion but his father was still there. I told my friend about him and the first words out of her mouth were “Does he need help getting his father out?”
I’m amazed. I’m impressed. Americans certainly wouldn’t have that kind of response to any US military action. Shit, we can’t even save our children at home, let alone our soldiers all over the world.
Take care—
K.
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I recall that the Pentagon complained a few years ago that the Army had too little ammunition. Like, for rifles. Seven-hundred-billion-dollars a year and soldiers are back to practicing warfare as they did under Major Eisenhower in the 1920s? — with wooden rifles? Which they may as well, since the doughboys haven't enough ammo, or at least then they didn't. Or, the Pentagon could simply shop at any neighbor gun store for supplies. Assault rifles and 100-round magazines? Hell, they're everywhere.