My Love-Hate Relationship with Russia and Ukraine

A Map of the Former Soviet Union. 

Ukraine is the yellow country on the far west.

The kind of person we are inside shows itself both in what we do and how we react.  I had a soul-revealing moment when I heard the news in 2014 of Russia invading Eastern Ukraine and taking Crimea. The summary of the thought that raced through my mind:  “You Go Vladimir (Putin)!”

Cheering for Russia in a military dispute with Ukraine is like cheering for the New York Yankees against a high school team.  Nevertheless I had a vivid moment, not of loving Russia, but hating Ukraine.

The face that came into my mind was my grandmother.  She and my grandfather escaped Ukraine, then part of Russia, at the turn of the 20th century when more than a million Jews were slaughtered in Ukraine in a series of attacks called pogroms. My grandparents had the double good fortune of making it all the way to America.  Many other Russian Jews fled to Eastern Europe.  Those who fled to Eastern Europe and their children were killed by the Nazis 40 years later.

The Holocaust in Ukraine

My grandparents would have described themselves as Russian Jews, not Ukrainian Jews.  For the last thousand years Ukraine has been Russia a lot more than it has been an independent country.  Mark Schauss covers the sad history of Ukraine and Russia in The Russian Rulers History Podcast, available on iTunes. 

While Russia, Poland and much of Eastern Europe has a long history of hating Jews, Ukraine is the most anti-semitic country in a very nasty region. 

Next August, when I ride across what my grandparents called Russia, my trip will begin in Odessa, Ukraine. I won’t be in Ukraine long, but I expect to have the same experience arriving in Odessa that I had when I first set foot in Germany:  “Can this beautiful place really be home to those who slaughtered so many of my people?”

I am re-reading Vassily Grossman’s “Life and Fate,” a haunting book that is “War and Peace” set in World War II, particularly in Stalingrad.  Currently I am reading the letter a Jewish mother in Ukraine is writing to her son in the Russian Army.  The Germans just took over her town.  The Jews are being rounded up, robbed and will soon be killed.  Most of the neighbors are happy and cheer the Germans on, taking the possessions and houses of the Jews.  The mother writing the letter describes women who were friendly for 50 years suddenly turning on her with venom. The neighbor thinks the Jews are getting what they deserve. 

My love-hate relationship with Ukraine and Russia extends through my whole life.  My first military job was live-fire testing of the US Air Force missile inventory, everything from the Sidewinder wing rocket to the Minuteman multi-stage nuclear missile, the main weapon delivery system in the US Cold War arsenal.  Then I was a tank commander on the East-West German Border waiting for World War III to start. 

When I went to college after the Army, the literature of Russia and the literature of Florence, Italy, became lifelong passions.  Chekov, Dostoevsky, Lermontov, Pushkin, Tolstoy and later Solzhenitsyn wrote the books I loved most, along with C.S. Lewis, Dante and Machiavelli.  Now I am studying the Russian language so I can read the authors I love most in their language.  Russia is currently home to many brilliant authors, but who knows when they will be forced underground. 

From my grandparents persecution, to my Cold War childhood and military life, through finding the beauty of Russian literature in college, to my current plans to travel across Russia and neighboring countries, I continue to intensify my love-hate relationship with Russia and all of its sad and brilliant history.  At this age, my love-hate relationship with Russia and Ukraine is a permanent part of my life.

Who Fights Our Wars? Flight Medic Returns from Another Deployment

Staff Sergeant Pamela Leggore on her second deployment to Iraq

When Task Force Diablo first deployed to Iraq in May of 2009 most of the unit was setting up facilities and operations after a last-minute base change.  We were slated to be at Balad Air Base, we were switched to Camp Adder, also know as Tallil Ali Air Base.

While the transport and maintenance operations moved into new facilities, the MEDEVAC unit was on site and in full operation.  Charlie Company, 1-52 Aviation, an active Army MEDEVAC unit, was already on site and in operation at Tallil.  Pennsylvania pilots and medics joined Charlie Company operations.

Dust storms grounded many flights during the summer at Tallil, making the daytime sky a so thick with dust, it was hard to see the next truck in a ground convoy, let alone fly.

Soon after we arrived, Leggore was on a MEDEVAC mission to rescue soldiers badly injured in an attack on their convoy.  The mission was successful and it was a very fast start to what has become a long career in Army medicine.  In the years since 2010 when she returned from deployment, Leggore has earned a nursing degree and has recently returned from another deployment to Iraq.

Between deployments she trains other medics with the skills she learned in combat and through advanced education in the Army and as a civilian.

Staff Sergeant Pamela Leggore training medics 

under simulated combat conditions at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.

Video Comparing Russian and US Army Field Rations: Beef Stew from Both Countries

Earlier this year, I ordered Russian Army field rations (Индивидуальный рацион питания/ИРП) from eBay.  This video compares the Russian ration rations with US Army MREs.  I compare the contents and have my kids compare the taste.  

Thanks to Teb Locke of Franklin and Marshall College for filming the taste test in the studios at F&M.