His tour was up, middle of June.
She was plannin' a welcome home barbecue,
Green bean casserole: ...gramma's recipe.
There was a knock at the door 'round two o'clock,
Two uniforms and her heart stopped.
Yellow ribbon 'round an oak tree blowin' in the breeze...
Here's to the ones who didn't make it back home,
The ones we ain't seen in so long.
The 'hold-up-a-beer' ones, 'wish-they-were-here' ones,
Not forgotten but gone.
In a better place up there, but they sure left a hole down here.
We just go on livin' and go on missin' the ones...
...The ones who didn't make it back home.
-Justin Moore
Memorial Day
In America, today is Memorial Day. For the benefit of those reading this who aren't American, basically every nation has a National Holiday set aside to commemorate soldiers who have died fighting for that country. This one is ours. It's a day when everyone waves red, white and blue flags, the young widows of fallen soldiers visit graves, political pundits try to twist the day's symbolism into an excuse to attack their supposedly "anti-American" opponents, and everyone posts emotional and patriotic memes on Facebook pretending to be solemn and somber and thankful when in reality they're mostly such a spoiled and entitled lot that the only thing they're truly grateful for is a day off from work. We're told that it is to commemorate "those who died fighting for our freedom."
...You know, never mind that the last generation of Americans who died fighting for our freedom were the ones who fought in World War II, and every war since has consisted of sending men to die for someone else's freedom, such as in the Korean War.
Anyway...
...I've always tried to treat this day with the gravity it deserves, primarily out of respect for the families of those who've fallen in war. But I'll be honest. I never truly grasped what it was about. I claimed to, but I didn't. The reason is because, frankly, I've never actually known anyone who died fighting for America.
But I've got plenty of friends and neighbors who have died fighting for Ukraine, defending their own homeland from an enemy that has attacked their own borders; their own homes; their own families. And I feel the need to tell a few of their stories today.
Aleksandr Androvich Sergiienko. Every bar has that one guy who is in every night, who somehow never seems to be as drunk as everyone else and finds it amusing that everyone else is; the guy who knows everyone's name and life story but never talks much about his own. Aleksandr was that guy, at "Yankee Bar and Grill" in Kharkiv. I never had a clue that he was a reservist.
The last time I saw him was two days before the war. He and I were discussing whether we thought Russia would invade or not. "They're not stupid enough to invade," I insisted. "Putin has an angle and he's trying to get something from the West by barking at their door, and now it's just a question of what bone needs to be thrown to him to shut him up, but he's got enough sense to know that if he comes across that border it'll be the beginning of the end for him." Aleksandr, who was born in Donetsk Oblast and had seen Russia's initial invasion in 2014, was skeptical.
Well, history shows which of us was right.
Aleksandr died in the liberation of Izyum. According to one of his unit mates, the last time anyone saw 26 year old Aleksandr, he was cracking the skull of an attacking Russian infantryman with the stock of a now-empty rifle.
Andrei Pavlovich Anikov. Andrei was old enough that he had been a raw conscript in the Soviet Army back when it still existed, and while he had grown to like "that weird Kovboiski next door" basically because his grandchildren (both of whom were my students) always spoke well of me, I was definitely an exception because he had never really been fond of the West. "If that suka Putin attacks us, it will be the biggest tragedy ever," he would always say when he'd had enough vodka and sung enough Karaoke to be honest. "Why? Because R-r-ro-byert, I tell you, if that happens, it will leave Ukraine with no one to turn to but the Poles, the Germans, and the Americans. The Poles I don't mind so much, but to see Ukraine depending on the West? Nyet, nyet. Ladna, ladna. Better for us to stay in-between, and if Putin does not have some devilment in his brain, that is how Ukraine will stay. But if he attacks..." here he would shrug. "How do you say... 'the enemy of my enemy,' you know this proverb? Better for Ukraine to be neutral than allied to the West... but better with the West then under the Russians again."
In other words, one of his reasons for fearing a Russian invasion is that it would leave Ukraine with a choice between a bad option (siding with the West) and a worse option (succumbing to Russian rule again).
Bear this in mind the next time someone says "it would all have been fine if Ukraine had just agreed to be neutral." Reality check: they were.
Anyway...
...The last time I saw Andrei was on Friday, February 25, 2022. I taught him, and the rest of the men in the shelter he was in, how to give a molotov cocktail a little extra punch by driving some nails through a strip of duct tape and using that tape to fasten a can of axe spray to the end of the bottle (the glass breaks, the cocktail ignites, the flame makes the can explode, the explosion slings shrapnel and nails).
On Saturday, February 26, 2022, Andrei, who lived in Industrialnyii, was in a basement shelter taking cover from the Russian bombardment of the city. A mobilization sergeant from the outnumbered and stretched-thin Ukrainian Army came through asking for able-bodied male volunteers to pick up rifles and confront a Russian column advancing on the area. Andrei, who was 51 years old and knew the Muscovite military mentality well enough to know what would happen to his family if the Russians got to them, raised his hand without a moment's hesitation.
The volunteer unit Andrei became part of, consisting of 25 people (mostly untrained civilians with a handful of former Red Army like Andrei), did themselves credit by destroying half of an advancing Russian company before being wiped out. I find it poetic that every Russian invader who died under Andrei's guns was killed by one of the Soviet veterans in whose footsteps they claim to be following. I hope he had time to put my "molotov plus" recipe to use before he fell.
Vadim Grigorovich Yurov. Vadim dreamed of becoming an author, and because he wanted to write in English, he took lessons from me. After I left Ukraine, Vadim continued attending his lessons via the internet (at least when the Russians weren't bombing the electrical grid). Vadim was an avowed pacifist, who did not believe in taking a life even in self-defense. It was not until I got a message from his teenage sister that I learned this had changed, moments before his death.
"Robert,
I am afraid my dear brother has attended his last of your lessons, because he has fallen. Because you were a good friend to he [sic] and he respect [sic] you very much, I will tell you how. Three Orcs [A Ukrainian slang term for the invading Russians] came our house. Father, they shot, and mother they raped until she passed out. They told to me I would be next. Their leader point [sic] his rifle to [sic] me and said 'your dress. Off. Now.' As they were busy laughing at my tears, Vadim took a knife from the kitchen and stapped [sic: I suppose she meant 'stabbed'] one of them. I don't know what happened next, but the other two were shocked enough that Vadim was able to take the rifle and kill the other two. He helped me to run by staying to fight when the others came, so they would not notice me. When they captured Vadim, they took him to the center of the village and had their way with him in the open until he bled to death.
Vadim always enjoyed your lessons very much Robert. He would want me to wish you every success in your teaching."
Vadim, who killed five Russian infantrymen defending his 14-year-old sister before being anally raped to death by Russian troops (troops who have the gall to claim they are on a "holy mission" defending their frozen wasteland of a country from imaginary "Nazis" who supposedly live in Ukraine, a country which hasn't attacked another nation in its history and which elected a Jewish president whose grandfather fought the ACTUAL Nazis) was 12 years old.
Bear that in mind when some brainless sonofabitch on social media tries to portray the Russians as "brave defenders" who are out to "liberate" Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in America...
The truth is, Americans do not have a clue what fighting for our own Freedom actually means. We've fought for revenge, such as those of us who enlisted after we watched the towers fall, and that's legitimate if you admit what it is. "No one attacks me with impunity" is a perfectly natural and justifiable motivation. We've fought to prevent rivals from becoming capable of threatening our soil, such as those who fought in either of the Iraq Wars, and that's fine. Destroying a threat before it can become a threat is legitimate if you admit that's what you're doing. And yes, we have taken up the call to fight for someone else's freedom at times.
But Americans don't have a clue what it is like to actually fight for the right to maintain our way of life, our identity, or even our right to exist. We haven't known that since World War II, the last time a nation that sought to conquer us actually managed to hit us at home. The ones right now who are actually fighting for freedom, who are fighting and dying to keep a colonial monster with openly stated genocidal intentions away from their own homes (and from rolling on into Europe and America next, as Russia openly claims they intend to do), aren't us. They're the Ukrainians.
And "remember the fallen heroes" hits a lot different when the war they died in was brought to them without them seeking it, rather than fought on some far-flung shore.
That's one Hell of an Amen! That's the only way to go,
Fightin' the good fight 'til the Good Lord calls you home.
So be well, my friend,
'Til I see you again.
This is our last good-bye...
...But it's a Hell of an Amen.
-Brantley Gilbert