General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US Dept. of Defense, has announced a somber statistic from the War in Ukraine: at least 100,000 Russians have now died as direct result of wartime or related injuries, and a like number of Ukrainian casualties is presumed.
In the midst of our raucous U.S. midterm elections, one is reminded of what crazed, slash-and-burn political rhetoric can produce, as an end game. Never before, to my knowledge, has the elderly spouse of a national officeholder (Nancy Pelosi) experienced an assault which cracked his skull. Today, this is not unique. 160+ years ago, the United States experienced a hideous civil war, the remains of which survive as a howling, dangerous mob of white supremacist groups, anti-semitic provocateurs and neo-Nazi barnstormers, all clamoring for the defeat and even murder of moderate or reasonable men and women leaders who practice one of the key motives for public candidacy: service to the nation, first. During the years when I worked for several combat-tasked military services, this ethic was markedly to the fore: service over power, and power exercised ethically..... the ultimate commitment of responsible leadership.
American young men and women enter military service, not to become wealthy, but because the uniform and what it represents mean that they are willing, if necessary, to suffer death or maiming in an active shooting war, defending the U.S. homeland and populace. Countless memorials and military veterans' cemeteries dot the landscape, and a number of these are local, not by accident: southerners make excellent fighters.
Former President ( General ) Dwight Eisenhower stated that his greatest career mentor before and during WW II was a quiet general officer named Fox Connor. General Connor, a brilliant student of military history and tactics, was born and grew up in the swamps and fields of the Mississippi delta. He commanded between-war U.S. Army Panama operations, patrolling the hazardous Culebra Cut to protect engineers and soldiers working to build a safe transoceanic Atlantic-to-Pacific canal. They fought snakes, predators, mosquitoes and horseflies in a tropical environment likened to living next door to Hell. Constant patrols went out into deep jungle, and young Eisenhower, not long out of West Point, was Connor's XO on these trips. Camping out together, Connor began a fireside dialogue with his junior officer about famous battles and how these were won, who commanded where, and what if anything was a lasting benefit.
Eisenhower was an eager learner and retained it all, emerging after some months under Connor's tutelage, thinking long about what was said: why was Hannibal of Carthage defeated, and what did Attila the Hun accomplish in bedeviling the declining Roman Empire? What were major differences in strategic battle plans of the Duke of Marlborough and, centuries later, Wellington at Waterloo? Who won and who lost? Why?
Hitler had not yet reared his ghastly head to receive accolades across class lines from the German public, which - astoundingly - voted him into power by a huge margin, twice: once as Chancellor and later, as supreme Fuehrer.
Winston Churchill, who later declined (?) a dukedom, was not yet in office but would prove crucial to Hitler's defeat as he and Eisenhower, now commanding allied Operation Overlord, drove Hitler's men farther and farther back into northwest Europe in the liberation of France and ultimate victory in WW II. Eisenhower instructed a furious Patton, who hated the Russ', to halt advance and allow Stalin's Russian soldiers to enter Berlin first. Fighting desperately and bravely, they had earned the coup, losing far more than 100,000 as they chased freezing German troops across snowy steppes to reclaim ancestral Slavic lands. An Iron Curtain crashed down, a Berlin Wall was erected, and a small, minor officer in the Russian KGB, posted to Eastern Germany, began to plan. What could he achieve? How could he become famous and feared, like Stalin? Perfecting strategies for ruthless advancement,
Vladimir Putin increased his knowledge of poisons, torture, covert sabotage and slanted Russian history, arriving at a plan which now, in his aging years, he has determinedly striven to execute. Kill as many as necessary, torture civilians and leaders to extract concessions, smiling all the while as his post-war insinuation into ranks of Kremlin apparatchiks finally rewards him with de facto supreme power.... but this proves a chimera. Sick with severe debilities, forced to receive frequent therapy and pain shots, now discredited across the free world, Putin's dreams crumble as the ragged, undersupplied Russian army retreats in desperate rout.
Putin's end is as certain as Attilas and Hannibal's: disgrace and betrayal. For the sake of thousands of innocent, murdered children and families of Ukraine, let us pray that his exit is not far off, and the winds of war in Ukraine subside to allow rebuilding of a gallant nation. For it is ever unwise to obey a madman....
Linda Berry is a Northsider.
