The night time was chilly, the jet noise was loud, and an emotional cost was within the air — like an electrical present about to arc. A cargo door opened on the aspect of the Boeing 747, and employees raised a carry to the jumbo jet’s stage. Then, like a star athlete dramatically rising onto the taking part in subject, the primary cargo pallet emerged. Then one other. And one other and one other.
Down on the tarmac, a crowd of journalists pressed ahead in opposition to a barrier. All of us hoped to watch what this plane, which had traveled midway world wide from America, had delivered to Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport.
To be trustworthy, the unloading course of wasn’t all that spectacular. No extra notable of a sight, by way of outward look, than something you would possibly see on the tarmac of any airport world wide on any given day. Simply cargo pallets containing bundled-together inexperienced crates. Nothing prompt the deadly potential of this cargo. Clues to the supply’s symbolic worth, nevertheless, have been much less elusive.
Pricey reader, I want you can have been there that night time, earlier than the Russians invaded, to really feel what it was like to observe these 300 Javelin anti-tank missiles emerge from the stomach of that big Boeing jet. Much more, I want you can have seen for your self the proud appears to be like on the faces of all of the Ukrainian journalists who stood beside me. You’d have been notably proud to be an American that night time, had you been there. I do know I used to be.
Whereas the pallets of Javelin missiles collected on the tarmac, a Ukrainian journalist named Yuriy turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder and stated, “It’s good to know we’re not alone.”
In his e book, Into Skinny Air, which describes his private experiences throughout the 1996 Mount Everest mountaineering catastrophe, Jon Krakauer writes: “I agree that readers are sometimes poorly served when an creator writes as an act of catharsis, as I’ve executed right here. However I hoped one thing could be gained by spilling my soul within the calamity’s instant aftermath, within the roil and torment of the second.”
I’m writing these phrases neck-deep within the second, and Ukraine’s destiny is much from sure. For months, Russia massed its navy forces on Ukraine’s borders whereas constantly denying its intention to invade. Now, the storm has arrived, and a full-scale Russian invasion bears down on a nation that didn’t ask for violence and didn’t ask for deadly missile bombardments which have killed scores of civilians.
As we speak, Russian forces have encircled and are prepared to put siege to the capital metropolis of Kyiv — house to some 3 million to 4 million individuals.
Perhaps you’ll be able to’t see the menace out of your vantage level, pricey reader. Perhaps this battle appears too distant to disrupt or destroy a life you care about. Whether or not you imagine it or not, what you might be seeing on TV and social media would be the starting of America’s subsequent battle.
For almost eight years, my adopted hometown of Kyiv remained comparatively quarantined from the bodily results of day by day fight some 400 miles away in Ukraine’s jap Donbas area. The battle’s bodily risks had lengthy been confined to a swath of territory alongside the contact line that prolonged solely so far as the vary of the weapons used. In brief, the battle grew to become a vacation spot; when you have been at it, you have been in it. Sure, it was widespread to see troopers on Kyiv’s streets. And, now and again, sidewalk shows reminded individuals concerning the battle’s ongoing toll. The battle had all the time been there, however clues to its existence have been usually delicate and simply ignored on this bustling, up-and-coming metropolis — the “New Berlin,” as many residents of Kyiv preferred to say.
At first, many Ukrainians have been skeptical about the potential of a Russian re-invasion this winter. However the temper shifted within the weeks main as much as the onslaught, with many individuals believing a wider battle was genuinely potential.
Many Ukrainians confronted robust decisions — particularly dad and mom. Some individuals selected to depart, heading to the western a part of the nation or overseas. Some selected to remain and stockpile provides to climate a Russian siege. Many attended crash-course navy coaching applications to organize for preventing Russians avenue by avenue. It appeared just like the opening scenes of a World Struggle II movie at instances. Besides it was not some Hollywood interpretation of historical past — these historic occasions are taking place proper now, in our time.
Earlier than the Russians invaded, the temper right here in Kyiv approximated that of any Florida city or metropolis within the days earlier than a hurricane. These ultimate days earlier than the storm are sometimes clear and calm and supply little proof of the invisible hazard lurking over the horizon. But, you perceive how rapidly the current lull can flip to tempest, and so it’s essential to determine, whereas there may be nonetheless time, whether or not to remain or flee. However it’s vital to notice {that a} hurricane is an act of God. This invasion was a alternative. And it’s a crime.
But, there was no sense of panic or outright anxiousness in Kyiv or throughout Ukraine. This nation had already been at battle for eight years, bear in mind. And Ukrainians aren’t a individuals to scare simply or put on their feelings on their sleeves.
By the top of Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in February 2014, sections of Kyiv had changed into de facto fight zones. Eight years later, bullet holes nonetheless scarred gentle poles and a stone wall on the place the place snipers gunned down protesters throughout the revolution’s ultimate days. This unfaded proof of previous violence reminded us all how skinny the veneer of civilization really is — and the way rapidly issues can disintegrate. Even so, strolling round Kyiv, it was onerous to take significantly the notion that this vibrant European capital would quickly be besieged.
With Russian navy forces massed on Ukraine’s borders, Kyiv’s buffer from the battle — by way of bodily distance and emotional immediacy — was quickly dissolving for lots of the metropolis’s civilians. Including to the spectacle, a tsunami of overseas journalists descended upon Ukraine. Regardless that Europe’s solely ongoing land battle had simmered for almost a decade, the stalemated trench fight within the Donbas had, till this winter, dropped from most international headlines.
The cottage trade of native fixers and producers had been semi-dormant for the reason that battle’s most energetic years in 2014 and 2015 however have been reemerging in pressure to accommodate hordes of overseas journalists queuing up for journeys to the Donbas entrance traces like vacationers ready for a trip at Disney World. The worldwide media presence at weekend coaching classes for Kyiv’s Territorial Protection Drive models resembled a red-carpet paparazzi scrum.
Other than the media circus, life seemed to be occurring as typical in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine. However while you requested individuals how they felt with out shoving a digital camera of their faces, many stated they have been genuinely involved about what might occur.
What number of kids needed to hug their father yet one more time, then go away him behind on the prepare station as Russian missiles rained down on the town?
Throughout the months main as much as the invasion, I usually used the phrase limbo to explain life right here in Ukraine. That phrase utilized to civilians and the roughly 430,000 Ukrainian veterans of the Donbas battle. Many belonged to Ukraine’s first operational reserve, who might be recalled to active-duty service inside 24 hours. Coming house from battle is difficult on any man or lady who has served — particularly when your battle isn’t over. Ukrainian veterans carried the added burden of realizing that, on 24 hours’ discover, they might be ordered to kiss their households goodbye, throw on a uniform, seize a gun, and stare down a Russian invasion pressure. They didn’t understand it then, however that’s precisely what they’d do.
“I’m going to withstand, positively. Like many veterans, my navy bag is already packed, and we continually coordinate our efforts,” Maria Berlinskaya, a Ukrainian veteran of the battle within the Donbas, informed me. “We all know that we are going to battle for freedom by ourselves, and we think about that it’s our obligation to guard not solely our nation however all of the Western world.”
The calculus was sober for the civilians who determined to remain and battle. After eight years of battle of their nation, they harbored no naïve or romantic notions about what battle is. They merely retained a resigned acceptance {that a} wider battle was coming.
Regardless of how dire the warnings from Washington have been, it was nonetheless onerous to imagine — to essentially imagine — that such a disaster was potential in our day and age. But, only one era in the past, Ukraine was on the deadliest battlefield of the deadliest battle in human historical past. Among the troopers who fought in that battle, and some civilians who survived it, are nonetheless alive at the moment. At this level, it’s irresponsible for Individuals to assume we’re in some way immune from historical past’s perennial cycles of battle and peace. Sure, America might see battle on that scale occur once more. And ultimately, the one solution to stop the subsequent disaster from taking place is to imagine that it really might.
I held my spouse’s hand the entire solution to the airport.
We’d talked about this for weeks. However now that the day was upon us ultimately, it felt improper. I questioned my choice. Had I made it too early? Was I overreacting to unfolding occasions? I felt much less positive of my convictions the nearer we got here to saying goodbye.
However what was the hurt in her leaving for just a few weeks? Higher to go now, I thought-about, whereas all of the airways have been nonetheless working. There have been loads of skeptics, notably amongst my American mates on the US embassy in Kyiv. They thought the Russian buildup was all a bluff and that I used to be being overdramatic. Truthful sufficient, I suppose. However by the start of February, I’d concluded the proof pointed towards Russia launching a significant navy operation. I couldn’t ignore it.
My spouse and I agreed on her departure after Russia started its huge navy buildup in Belarus, elevating the chance of an assault on Kyiv. To her credit score, Lilly didn’t need to go. However she supported my suggestion, in addition to my want to remain behind to provide the Ukrainian individuals — the victims — a voice on this horrible chapter in historical past.
Lilly dealt with the entire scenario with grace. And that’s saying one thing as a result of her 57-year-old father, a Soviet military veteran, had determined to enlist as a member of his hometown’s territorial protection battalion. Lilly’s mom couldn’t evacuate with out dropping her job, so she selected to remain behind as effectively. Lilly didn’t need to go, both. However she did it for me.
The departure corridor at Kyiv’s Boryspil Worldwide Airport was much less crowded than typical, however the place appeared regular. The normality additional fueled my self-doubt. I felt somewhat foolish. No manner a battle might come right here, I believed. I imply, come on, this can be a European capital. We’ve got McDonald’s eating places and Nike City shops and speakeasy bars and CrossFit gyms, and Apple TV in our residing rooms. You’re being dramatic, the mental aspect of me stated.
And but a darkish warning emanated from the reptilian a part of my mind. Like a chill down the backbone when standing on the fringe of a cliff or the heartbeat of adrenaline on the S-shape of a slithering snake — some unexplainable, historic alertness to hazard warned me that ordinary life was the phantasm. Struggle was the truth.
After check-in, we walked to the safety checkpoint. We’d made a agency choice days earlier whereas underneath extra emotionally sober circumstances. Now, momentum was doing all of the work. We gave in to gravity and went as far collectively as we might.
My spouse and I embraced, and the entire world swirled round us at a half-beat quicker rhythm than our personal. We held one another a second, holding in place the one factor we might. I kissed her, and we pressed our foreheads collectively and spoke within the house between. I stated I beloved her and that I’d be secure. I promised we’d see one another once more quickly.
After which she was gone, and I used to be alone. Hers was a one-way ticket, and it ripped my coronary heart out to see her go. I didn’t know the place and underneath what circumstances we’d meet once more.
How many individuals in Ukraine needed to say an analogous goodbye in these few weeks main as much as the invasion? What number of kids needed to hug their father yet one more time, then go away him behind on the prepare station as Russian missiles rained down on the town? What number of unknowingly stated goodbye for the ultimate time?
What battle does, that soiled criminal…
Above all, it steals our time collectively.
I had been in Ukraine for almost eight years earlier than the invasion to report on the battle within the Donbas — the place, alongside an entrenched entrance line, Ukrainian troops had been in fixed fight in opposition to Russian forces for the reason that spring of 2014. The fight I skilled within the battle’s early years exceeded the depth of something I noticed in Iraq and Afghanistan — each as an Air Drive particular operations pilot and later as a battle journalist. Artillery barrages, rocket assaults, tank fight, snipers and trench battle, and even a civilian airliner shot from the sky. It was terrifying stuff.
By invading the Donbas, Moscow doubtless supposed to reverse the end result of Ukraine’s 2014 pro-democratic revolution in a bid to protect Russia’s Soviet-era empire of affect. The Kremlin assumed that its unconventional blitzkrieg would break Ukraine’s civil society and trigger the nation to unravel from inside. However Ukraine’s residents — its younger adults, particularly — proved to be far more resilient than Moscow had anticipated.
For Ukraine’s millennials, the Soviet Union is a secondhand reminiscence. Too younger to understand the perils of the Nineties, they grew up watching American films and experiencing Western tradition by proxy by social media and the web. Consequently, the nation’s youthful generations remained hopeful that their lives would enhance, and hope had been the catalyst for turbocharged social and political modifications for the reason that battle started.
In these early months of the battle, Ukraine’s common military, which remained depleted in manpower and gear after a long time of post-Soviet corruption, might muster no quite a lot of thousand combat-ready troopers. Thus, with the common military on its heels and the menace from Russia ever rising, a nationwide, grassroots resistance motion took form. It was a spontaneous manifestation of Ukrainian civil society, underscoring a widespread angle of self-reliance amongst residents who have been unwilling to attend for the federal government to behave in a second of disaster.
No matter shaped their particular person inclinations, one thing extraordinary needed to have taken root within the soul of every man and lady who volunteered for battle on Ukraine’s behalf. I do know from expertise how terrifying it’s to advance towards the sounds of gunfire or an artillery cannonade; one should be motivated by one thing extra highly effective than the concern of demise to do it.
Following a February 2015 cease-fire, the battle froze right into a stalemate. Since then, the parallel existence of bizarre life and fight had change into the battle’s most jarring attribute. You could possibly have McDonald’s for dinner in Kyiv, take the in a single day prepare to Avdiivka, and listen to the sounds of artillery from the close by entrance traces rumbling within the background by morning. That transition from battle to peace was much more extreme in cities like Mariupol, the place on a regular basis life carried on inside earshot of the entrance traces.
Struggle, in a way, had change into a part of the common background din of life in Ukraine. Though large-scale fight loomed just like the sword of Damocles over the nation, threatening to escalate past the Donbas at any second, Ukrainians tailored to the hazard. Even within the front-line metropolis of Avdiivka, which often suffered from wayward Russian shells, outside markets remained open, and kids nonetheless went to high school. There have been nonetheless weddings, birthdays, funerals, and different ebbs and flows of bizarre life. However the storm of battle was nonetheless there, simply over the horizon, able to strike at any second.
That’s one factor that battle, even the specter of it, does. It turns the totally banal, on a regular basis trappings of life into extraordinary expressions of grace underneath stress.
Going through the prospect of a much more intensive and deadlier battle, volunteer teams skilled civilians in fight first help, easy methods to pack go-bags, the place to search out the closest bomb shelters, and easy methods to handle kids in a fight surroundings. It was outstanding to observe, actually. Ukraine’s civil society stepped as much as the plate and ready for battle. They — as soon as once more — didn’t look ahead to the federal government to avoid wasting them.
As we speak, because the Ukrainian navy continues to battle ferociously on the sphere of battle, the fruits of their preparation are evident. The entire world watches because the Ukrainian nation delivers a grasp class in how a democratic society ought to act in a second of disaster. It’s onerous to show again the clock when you’ve sowed the expectation of freedom inside a nation’s thoughts.
Eleven a.m. on a Tuesday morning is a time for adults to be at work and youngsters in class. However not that day. On the chilly morning of Feb. 8, about two dozen Ukrainian civilians, ranging in age from 13 to 60, stood in formation on a snow-covered subject in an industrial space on the outskirts of Kyiv. They have been clad in a mishmash of previous military uniforms and outside gear. They wore trainers and climbing boots. Some held wood facsimiles of Kalashnikovs; others introduced their searching weapons. They’d gathered on the base of the Georgian Nationwide Legion, a unit of overseas fighters who volunteered to battle for Ukraine.
Earlier than Russia invaded, the legion organized programs in fundamental navy abilities for a few of Kyiv’s civilians to be taught the basics of marksmanship and extra. A number of instances every week, for a number of hours per stretch, these civilians ran by particular person motion drills, together with easy methods to take cowl from artillery and airstrikes and classes in small unit ways. Their repeated presence at these drills supplied clear proof of the Ukrainians’ spirit of resistance. These weren’t weekend warriors or wannabe troopers. These have been individuals who needed to guard their households.
Main that day’s drills was Adam, a 25-year-old former US Army Ranger and fight veteran of the battle in Afghanistan. Standing close by was Paul, an Army fight veteran of Iraq who served within the one hundred and first Airborne Division. Adam and Paul fought in opposition to insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two American fight veterans have been tasked with coaching Ukrainian civilians to wage an insurgency of their very own in opposition to a possible Russian occupation pressure. Each males additionally believed that it was their ethical obligation to assist Ukrainians defend their freedom and their lives ought to Russia assault.
The trainees sprinted from place to place with the unquestioning dedication of recruits in fundamental coaching — though many have been of their 40s or older and previous their bodily primes. By Adam’s account, they picked up his classes rapidly. The civilians’ dedication to navy coaching made a robust impression on the American veteran. Notably the presence of a 13-year-old boy named Oleg. Hours later, at dinner, Adam stared into his beer and defined that the sight of Oleg coaching for battle had laid naked the potential for human tragedy throughout a Russian assault.
“He simply regarded so younger,” Adam stated. “That child ought to be out taking part in together with his mates, not preparing for a Russian invasion.”
On that night time, Paul, Adam, and I met at a pizza restaurant in central Kyiv with different members of the Georgian Nationwide Legion. We ate effectively and shared just a few beers, buying and selling tales of the wars we’d all been to. Because the night time moved on and drinks flowed, we started to extra overtly specific the ideas that had been spinning like cyclotrons inside our minds. Above all, what would we do if Russia attacked Kyiv?
Paul, who had lived in Ukraine for 15 months already, defined that a lot of his Ukrainian mates have been asking him what to do — keep, flee, or battle? For his half, Paul was able to defend his adopted hometown ought to Russia assault. Adam, too, was prepared to take up arms, ought to the worst come to cross. Each males knew that this wasn’t their battle. However defending harmless civilians is a common obligation, each males believed, for individuals like themselves who’ve the talents and the spirit to battle.
Because the night time wore on and the alcohol caught up, the absurdity of the entire scenario was not misplaced on me or any of us. There we have been in a European capital in 2022, planning for a World Struggle II-style siege. Adam, who had solely been within the nation for 2 days by this level, displayed a wide-eyed have a look at instances as if his thoughts have been asking, What the hell did I simply stroll into?
We mentioned plans to purchase radios and fill up on meals, water, and first-aid kits. I invited Paul and Adam to dwell with me if the Russians attacked the town — power in numbers, proper? They agreed.
We left the bar and stepped into the chilly night time. Friendship, camaraderie, companionship — these items hit more durable and change into as important as oxygen when the trimmings of civilization appear able to collapse. On the precipice of catastrophe, the most typical and highly effective human emotion is, I imagine, a want to not be alone. To hunt consolation in companionship, to share your story with these round you. And, after all, to giggle.
Fun, a slap on the again, a shot of some stiff drink — all these items divorced us from our actuality, if just for a second. However when that night time ended with the rise of a sober solar, the total weight of the second descended on me once more. I felt very unhappy for all of the individuals residing right here. Their worst fears have been about to return true.
About 100 yards from the ground-level entrance to my residence constructing, there lies an underground pedestrian passageway. Earlier than the Russians invaded, I walked every day by the stone-walled, Soviet-era underground arcade on my solution to and from wherever. And on the identical time every night, a musical duo was invariably positioned in opposition to one wall taking part in their eclectic set of music. Because the battle clouds drew in, the presence of these musicians and the fantastic thing about the music they performed developed from being a part of the background din of day-to-day residing. They grew to become a unprecedented instance of the power of human beings to endure. That’s one factor that battle, even the specter of it, does. It turns the totally banal, on a regular basis trappings of life into extraordinary expressions of grace underneath stress.
Two musicians — a girl on violin and a person on accordion. It was such a easy, stunning factor. But, primarily based on their notes’ emotional influence, that underground passageway might have been a front-row seat to see Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Corridor. The music they performed was crisp and clear within the frigid winter air. The hall linked to a close-by metro station, and a gradual stream of individuals all the time handed by on the workday’s finish. Folks went about their day by day lives bundled up for the winter chilly. Regardless of the hustle of life within the massive metropolis, just a few individuals often gathered close to the musicians. They stood there, pausing their life a second to pay attention. Then they’d drop some become the musicians’ assortment field and transfer on.
As the specter of a Russian invasion forged a darker shadow over our lives, I observed a peculiar however placing change among the many individuals who stood apart to observe these musicians play. They started to make eye contact extra usually and extra freely. Perhaps it was a small factor, even a bit imagined. Maybe I craved a reference to the individuals round me.
On the night of Saturday, Feb. 12, the day the US and a rating of different overseas embassies introduced their evacuations, I used to be on my solution to seize groceries when, as was my behavior, I paused to hearken to the musicians play. They started a classical rendition of “Zhuravli” by the Ukrainian rock band The Hardkiss. The pulsing, rising, and falling tempo and tone of the music caught me off guard. Abruptly, I noticed every little thing underneath the shadow of battle. The mom holding her daughter’s hand. A bunch of youngsters smoking, speaking, laughing. A younger couple embracing. The older man shuffling by together with his arms held behind his again. I noticed all this, and a mountain of rage and disappointment and aimless vitality rose inside me.
With my again in opposition to the wall, I took out my iPhone and commenced to report. After which it began. It rose from my chest slowly at first, and I attempted to manage it however couldn’t. So I cried. I cried for the previous eight years. For all of the struggling I’d seen and all of the courageous individuals I’d met. I cried as a result of I missed my spouse, as a result of I needed her to have a homeland to return again to. I cried due to Daniel, a 19-year-old soldier who had been my good friend and had died in battle years in the past. I cried for the hundreds of different Ukrainians who’ve suffered of their battle for freedom. I cried as a result of their battle wasn’t over. It was solely simply starting.
You, pricey reader, watched all of the wishful considering that aimed to dismiss the Russian buildup as a bluff disappear within the opening salvo of missiles that struck Kyiv on Feb. 24. The tanks, artillery, ballistic missiles, multiple-launch rocket programs, digital warfare programs, assault helicopters, warplanes, and tens of hundreds of troopers crossed the border from staging areas and ahead positions alongside dozens of miles of Ukraine’s borders. This battle is not a distant thought, however a violent actuality.
The US authorities and plenty of others cleared out their embassies, and worldwide air journey got here to a halt. The relative calm and “life goes on” sang-froid inside Kyiv, which had so stupefied all of the overseas journalists, cracked and gave solution to making Molotov cocktails and taking cowl in subways. As I write this, the westbound exodus of civilians continues as Kyiv is surrounded by Russian forces. Males ages 18 to 60 are forbidden from leaving — their nation wants them on the entrance traces.
Lots of my mates purchased physique armor and radios, which have little doubt change into invaluable lifesaving items of apparatus. One good friend, who’s a part of an underground resistance cell, had invested hundreds of his personal {dollars} into changing his automobile right into a cellular radio communications relay put up.
My mates within the Georgian Nationwide Legion relocated to a defensive position simply north of Kyiv’s metropolis limits. I concern for his or her survival. Braveness, of which they’ve loads, counts for little in opposition to an airstrike or an Iskander missile. Regardless of the overwhelming odds stacked in opposition to them, and the relentless shelling of navy and civilian targets alike, Kyiv nonetheless stands as I write this.
I made plan after plan about what I’d do in several conditions. However it was all an educational train. And it was all type of bullshit, to be trustworthy. In reality, nobody is aware of what to do on this scenario. Not likely. Anyhow, I’m nonetheless right here. My mates and I banded collectively for security, and I’ll proceed to report for so long as I can. If the Russians take Kyiv, I’ll do my finest to get in another country. And when that is all stated and executed, Lilly and I plan to reunite in Florida. I sit up for a protracted trip and many heavy consuming; I’ve one hell of a narrative to inform.
In the summer season of 2014, I had a one-way aircraft ticket to Ukraine. I left to report on the battle, considering I’d solely be gone for about two weeks. I didn’t even test a bag.
By the point the aircraft landed in Kyiv, I used to be in a severe way of thinking. Hyperaware of particulars, I noticed my new environment from the again seat of a taxi on the drive into the town middle. The sounds of the language by the radio, the microcosms of day-to-day life on the aspect of the highway. The kinds of buildings, the makes of the automobiles, the merchandise marketed on billboards. I registered all of it. However there was one thing unseen lurking behind each vignette. A hidden presence that framed each novel statement.
It was the battle, though there wasn’t a single clue to its presence. Not but, no less than.
The taxi deposited me in Kyiv’s metropolis middle on the high of Institutskaya Road, because it was nonetheless referred to as on the time. As we speak, it’s named Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred Road, in honor of the roughly 100 protesters who died within the February 2014 revolution. On that heat summer season day, bushes lined the cobblestone avenue because it steeply ascended from the Maidan, Kyiv’s central sq. and the epicenter of these pivotal occasions. Younger {couples} in shorts and flip-flops walked previous holding arms. Cops on their beats have been relaxed, smiling and joking. But, beneath the veneer of what might have been a typical summer season day in any European capital, there have been reminders of what occurred there throughout the revolution’s ultimate days.
Bullet holes pockmarked the road indicators and bushes. An association of framed pictures was unfold over the bottom, surrounded by flowers and candles. The pictures have been of the fallen — women and men, young and old — on a regular basis individuals. I scanned these faces and puzzled what had impressed them to be so courageous.
Of all of the sights and sounds I encountered that day, one stood out above all others. It was a voice in English, so my ears naturally homed in on the comprehensible phrases.
“Freedom isn’t free,” the voice stated.
Since that day, I’ve had an eight-year training in what these phrases really imply. And now, as I witness an unthinkable catastrophe unfold round me, Ukrainians nonetheless imagine that their goals of freedom and democracy are value preventing for — it doesn’t matter what it prices them.
The entire world wants to listen to that message as they watch Ukraine, quietly asking themselves, “Is that this our subsequent battle?”
This text first appeared within the Spring 2022 version of Espresso or Die’s print journal as “America’s Subsequent Struggle?”
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