Posted on 02/28/2023 11:00:45 AM PST by Candor7
ON THE ROAD
The air-raid siren sounded again through the defiant city, but William McNulty refused to be bothered by it. After a long morning of meetings in Kyiv with Ukrainian partners in need of medical tourniquets and cold-weather clothing, the man had earned an afternoon nap. The air flowing through the hotel room’s open window nipped of brittle autumn, and sunlight was leaking through gray clouds; winter, as the Ukrainians liked to quip, was coming.
F**k it, McNulty thought. The chances of getting hit by a drone strike in a city of three million people seemed low. A U.S. Marine veteran from Chicago who’s served in Iraq and done humanitarian work in dozens of conflict and natural-disaster zones, he’s grown numb to the frequent sirens that are now a mainstay of life in Ukraine. Since Russia’s latest invasion began in February of last year, he’s traveled throughout the country, by train and van, to rural villages and the front, delivering supplies to those fighting at democracy’s edge. His nonprofit group, Operation White Stork, makes no quibble about supporting Ukraine in the war. He’s had his fill of messy wars and ambiguous purposes. He believes this is it, the real deal, the righteous cause that people of action always not-so-secretly crave.
Even altruists need sleep, though. So McNulty, forty-five, lay on his bed, shut his eyelids, and focused, as much as he could, on rest. Then came a strident hum. It cut through the sirens, then over them, braying and obnoxious, like a great lawn mower in the sky. It kept nearing and nearing. Then it passed directly over McNulty’s hotel.
“That was enough for me,” he recalls days later, as we drive somewhere along the black ribbon of highway between Kyiv and the port city of Odesa in the far south. He identified the noise as the engine of an Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drone, one of many Russia has used to terrorize Ukraine’s civilian population over the past few months. He dared move only when the noise had faded out and there was nothing but air-raid siren again. To McNulty’s fortune, another target had been selected in Kyiv that afternoon in mid-October. “I headed down to the shelter room. Then we went out and ate at a nice Italian place.”
In the language of this new war, McNulty is a “volunteer,” one of roughly tens of thousands of internationals and local Ukrainians who’ve devoted themselves to supporting the resistance against the Russian military. The roles they play vary widely, from humanitarians like McNulty to social-media celebrities fundraising for military units. There are brash foreign fighters and humble food drivers and furtive gunrunners and ancient babushkas knitting camouflage ghillie suits in community gyms. Some are volunteers in the literal sense, burning through their savings to subsidize their work. Some earn a small stipend; still others are profiteers who see nothing wrong with benefiting financially amid a nation’s war for survival. It’s proven dangerous work, too—in January, two British volunteers were killed attempting to evacuate an elderly civilian. In February, American Pete Reed, another Marine veteran, was killed when an antitank missile hit his ambulance. For all the differences in type and approach, the volunteer movement is unified by a core belief that this is a fight worth fighting, that Ukraine is worth defending.
A series of altruistic articles from on the ground
This is what the torch bearers think....popularizing the war in Ukraine, ....remember the Spanish Revolution and Franco....there are similarities.
The Ukraine war is being sold to the public, which means our sons and daughters on the ground in another Democrat created war.
Ping
Ukrainians don't want US soldiers, they want weapons like ATACMS that can allow them to win the war.
“The Ukraine war is being sold to the public...”
I was in the minority of my social circle that believed this war was a fustercluk at the outset. I knew Ukraine was corrupt and that the US and NATO were ultimately responsible for triggering Russia into invading by crossing the Red Line Putin had warned against.
Fast forward a year later, most of my social circle that bought into the narrative of “Ukraine good, Russia bad” have experienced an epiphany and are suffering from buyer’s remorse. They realize they were lied to and sold a bill of goods by a corrupt and greedy US government.
Zelensky could use you tlozo. When are you going?
We complained that the Iraqis wouldn't fight, we complained the Afghan's wouldn't fight. Now the Ukrainians are fighting and people are complaining about the small amount spent to support them which decimates the conventional military of our regional rival Russia.
“which means our sons and daughters on the ground in another Democrat created war.”
***********************************
They’re gonna need one humdinger of a false flag incident that they cam blame Russia for to get the American people willing to send our troops over there. War with Russia and/or China will eventually require a draft, good luck with that, these zoomers are even less likely than the 60’s hippies to go along with that.
These rah rah types do not want to talk about the rampant corruption throughout Ukraine. As much as 90% of the funds we send is grifted away into the Swiss bank accounts of government crooks. This is not a war of the good and the bad. They are all bad. there is nothing good about any of it. not surprising that Biden would be all over it. He is the bad of the bad.
It's no secret, they are American Traitors in America.
reading the article, Ukraine still has functioning hotels (this guy stayed in one), nice Italian restaurants (he ate in one), good roads throughout the country (he mentions driving to Odessa), and thousands of foreign volunteers helping out
hardly the apocalyptic wasteland the Russian shills here would have us believe
guess the Russian shills were lying to us
Russians conducted an organized cleansing(executions) of the captive Ukrainian population which they called "Zachistka"
Father Vasyl Bentsa matches photos he made when he discovered the bodies of five men tortured and shot by Russian troops in Zdvyzhivka, Ukraine, including Mykola “Kolia” Moroz, 47, with potential evidence of the crime left in the forest where the men were buried
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/ukraine-war-russian-soldiers-violence/
Biden’s stupid/needless war is effed nine ways to Sunday.
Yes, war is hell.
Only secret weapon the Ukraines have is Biden and he missfires all the time.
Traitors to America in a real sense. But more realistically, tragic lost men of a generation formed by over twenty years of war.
Rather than do something productive, and raise a decent family they chase the adrenaline rush, “operator” beards, go pros and selfies.
They are damaged people. But they have to couch it in dramatic talk to convince themselves they aren’t wasting their life.
Unfortunately you are right. And they are being used as poster children to popularize the war .....so we will send over our own blood.
For me, this sucks in the extreme, Biden could have ended this war by faster and more comprehensive supply,but he has purposefully created a war of attrition.And this now is getting out of hand, sucking in the whole world.
Hello Weitnamski! All over again.
Bad, bad, news.
“which means our sons and daughters on the ground”
Well, in your imagination at least.
The ukes aint never going to win.
That's just the places the Russians get in to or are close to doing so for an extended time. (Bakhmut)
It's also interesting to compare the Pooty tools' accounts of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine with the UN observers' numbers, from 2014-2021. You see numbers here on FR like 14,000 pro-Russians slaughtered. The UN's numbers for (total fatalities on both sides combined) were much, much lower. In some recent years they were in the teens or single digits.
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