Posted on 12/15/2023 10:59:52 AM PST by Mount Athos
With Ukraine’s military facing mounting deaths and a stalemate on the battlefield, army recruiters have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to replenish the ranks, in some cases pulling men off the streets and whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force.
Recruiters have confiscated passports, taken people from their jobs and, in at least one case, tried to send a mentally disabled person to military training, according to lawyers, activists and Ukrainian men who have been subject to coercive tactics. Videos of soldiers shoving people into cars and holding men against their will in recruiting centers are surfacing with increasing frequency on social media and in local news reports.
Andrii Semaka, a soldier who in the early months of the war worked in the Vyzhnytsia recruiting center, said his office would bring in 15 to 20 potential conscripts a day. Roughly a quarter of them, he said, would bribe his superior, who remains in charge of the center, offering around $1,000 dollars to avoid being drafted. That price has only gone up since.
One doctor at a nearby hospital, he said, would forge the documents from the medical commission after receiving a call from the recruiting center. The supervisor would call the doctor and say: “For this one, write that he is unfit. And for the other, write that he is healthy,’” he said.
Residents in the region have said more recently that it was open knowledge that men could buy their way out of service.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Don’t worry, all is going splendidly for your national socialist allies.
Of all the Leftists I hate (Yes, "hate") it is the ones that have that mindset I so dislike.
It was best described, IMO, in the excellent book "Once An Eagle" by Anton Myrer. In it, he describes a WWI army officer (a Mustang) named Sam Damon who decides to make the Army a career, which was a tough row to hoe during those interwar years. (If you have ever read the book, you may recognize the scene I am relating and don't need to read my "book review" further!)
Damon is married above his station, a high society woman from a wealthy family, and he took an extended leave to go with her to visit her parents on their palatial estate in the midwest somewhere, or it might be on Long Island. (It has been a few years since I read it, so all of this is from memory...but this part stood out to me)
When he and his wife travel out to visit her parents, he is pretty bored by all of it, and wonders how he is going to survive a month of just sitting around. One day, her father, a wealthy industrialist, is having a party on his estate with a bunch of his friends and fellow industrialists, and Sam Damon, the lowly Army Officer, is just watching, not participating because they aren't really interested in his opinions.
As they are drinking their brandy and smoking cigars, they discuss the various issues they face in business, his father-in-law relates how he is having problems with his business, organization, inventory, and so on. His stockyard is completely disorganized from where the materials are disgorged, and they can't find items ordered, it is a mess.
His father-in-law turns to him, and almost out of sympathy for his sitting there doing nothing, asks Sam Damon what he would do about the problem. All the upper crust tycoons look at him with the disinterest of viewing a butterfly pinned to a board. They don't expect anything useful in the least from him, and view this interaction as a way to validate their looking down at him.
But Sam Damon has been listening, and he has wartime experience with organization, material transportation, storage, and delivery, and says something like "While I was in Europe during the war, I had experience with logistics at a train depo, and we had problems that we solved by applying stencils to crates with color coding, geometric shapes, and so on, that enabled us to see at a glance..." and so on.
His Father-in-Law said "Why don't you come over to our factory and take a look at the mess over there? Maybe you can give them some ideas?" His wife knows he isn't the guy to sit around doing nothing for the next twenty days, so he agrees.
When he shows up, his Father-in-Law introduces him to the Stockyard Team, run by a big, burly guy who clearly runs the roost who is told Sam Damon is going to see how things are run, and offer ideas that might improve things. The Stockyard Boss is outwardly friendly and eagerly agrees to show Sam Damon the ropes.
As he is shown the huge stacks of crates covered with tarps, he asks how they find anything, and the Boss says he knows where everything is, so that isn't really a problem.
But Sam Damon sees immediately that this is the problem. Nobody knows "where everything is" and there isn't any kind of inventory, so Damon says "The first thing we need to do is a full inventory of everything we have in this stockyard.
The heavyset boss who runs the place immediately begins pushing back, saying we can't do that, it would take too much time, we don't have the resources, the stuff will get wet if it rains, etc. etc. etc.
Damon has spent his Army career (including combat where, out of necessity, he honed his evaluation skills) learning to read people and make quick impressions to make quick decisions. He recognizes two things: this "Boss" is the root of the problem, and two, the "Boss" is a bully. He is used to cowing people and having them back down when any challenges are made to his fiefdom.
Of course, having spent so much time in the military, Damon knows this type of man quite well. He sees them at all levels, especially when they have a little kingdom that is "theirs".
And he also knows that there is an audience to this discussion. All the stockyard workers are standing nearby, watching and listening, and they fully expect the Boss to cow this guy into submission. And even if they don't like the fat boss, they want to see him win, because they don't want any change.
Damon sees this dynamic instantly. He knows if he backs down, he is finished. So he says "Okay. We are going to do a complete inventory of this stockyard, beginning right now." The fat boss says he and his guys will do no such thing and that the President of the company (his father in law) will back him up.
Damon knows he has control, and realizes he has to put this bully down hard, so he approaches him, telling him he is going to kick his ass if he doesn't get moving. The guy, flinches, and backs up a few inches saying something like "You can't do that! I have a bad back!" and Damon knows the guy is just a bully who will back down to anyone who stands up to him.
The bully "boss" is cowed, and he toes the line. All the workers watching the drama unfold line up with Damon, even the boss, they roll up their sleeves and begin the inventory.
After two weeks, the stockyard is running like clockwork. His father in law offers him a big salary to resign his commission and come work for him, but Damon is a military man, he knows it, and there he stays.
The point is, growing up as a military dependent as the son of a career officer, seeing it in my tour in the Navy, hearing it in college, and seeing it from people in the business world, I know this mindset that the military is for losers who don't have the capability to make it on the outside. I hated and despised hearing it. In the civilian world, if I am part of the hiring process and an applicant tells me they served, that gives them a leg up in my book.
I don't know what the military is now, but it is easy to see it isn't a meritocracy. In the military I was in, it was color blind. If you were competent, you got promoted. I saw it with my own eyes. It isn't to say incompetent people DIDN'T get promoted, that has and will always happen.
But today, it is how many checkboxes you have checked, and how compliant you are with the ideological views of the political commissars. It is going to be a bloodbath for our folks fighting if we get into a real shooting war. It breaks my heart.
I am glad you liked it, FRiend...:)
Corrupt is Ukraine
Begging money for big gain
That is such a shame
(A haiku is 3 lines, 5 syllables 1st and 3rd lines, 7 syllables 2nd line. But mine’s not a real haiku, either, because its not inspired by nature or seasons -— unless that includes HUMAN nature) ;)
I heard Speedy and RevMom are going to sign up.
Good news. If UKR begins waiving age restrictions and allowing older recruits, several US congressmen and congresswomen will be eligible to signup and fight.
Nice passage, I’ll look for the book.
I’m a military brat too, as was my dad, and his dad before him. I despise those who look down on the military and military service.
“Don’t worry, all is going splendidly for your national socialist allies.”
You should worry because your Soviet communist allies are getting slaughtered.
whakuis
Women with pony tails
Run a lot
Proof of evolution
Will a few apples
Get you
A run - jog with them
LOL, that link was like an exclamation mark to the haiku...:)
hubris vs hebrews
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4190149/posts?q=1&;page=1
* warning *
was the wrong link
Hahahahaha...okay, someone said this is how you always post, so I will look at it in that way!
Of course, your pasting the wrong link in there reminded me of the time that Gary Larson (The Far Side cartoonist) found out that a syndicated newspaper had printed his cartoon, but mixed up the caption with some other cartoon (switched them)
Apparently, Larsen thought that both his cartoon and the one done by the other cartoonist were both better with the wrong caption...:)
We are fellow brats, then! You get it...:)
Funny. I was talking with someone a few years back, and they were offended in some way by the term “military brat”. I recall that to her, it sounded demeaning.
She wasn’t a military brat herself.
It has been my observation that most military dependents enthusiastically embrace the moniker “military brat” as their own! I don’t know what it is like today, probably tickle’s someone’s woke nerve ending so it is no longer allowed or something!
Screw em. “I yam who I yam!”
Oh I have always (and with pride) say I’m an army brat when asked about my upbringing. Every military brat I’ve ever know was the same. Common experience about Military housing, moving every 2-3 years, living on base or overseas, shopping in the PX/commisary. A formative lifestyle.
And yet there are those who put the keywords “fakenews”, “walterduranty”, and “newyorkslimes”, as though the mere fact of NYT reporting is enough to render it false.
This is a misconception of the point of media outlets like the NYT and WaPo: they are means by which the establishment signals what the “appropriate mainstream opinion” is. That’s why, when speaking on matters related to conservatism or Trump (for example), the Times’ reporting must be heavily sifted to determine if it is true or not (since the establishment despises both).
Yet, the establishment has been gung-ho for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion...so for the Times to finally report on Ukraine’s “recruitment tactics” is a sign that they are preparing to shift the window of mainstream opinion against Ukraine, and that it’ll once again be “publicly acceptable” for people to disagree with supporting Ukraine.
(And, as you yourself noted, videos of Ukrainian military officials abducting men and dragging them into enclosed vans have been on Twitter since 2022; it’s only now, as Ukraine’s defeat becomes more imminent, that the establishment now seeks to adjust the mainstream opinion so that the announcement of Ukraine’s eventual loss won’t come across as a total shock to normie liberals.)
Another way you tell is when the same stories appear in all the major Regime news sources at the same time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/08/ukraine-russia-war-draft-dodgers/
It was indeed a formative experience. Marriage. Naval Service. Growing up as a Brat.
In that order, for me!
I’ll Freepmail a link you might like. It is a story for All Hands Magazine my dad wrote about our five year around the world deployment as a military family!
Sorry for the late response, I do not log in too frequently.
Yes my point was when your best economic opportunity is only the military, your country has issues....not that there is any dishonor in serving...
Sorry if anyone took it wrong
Well, thank you for the civil response. If that is what you meant, I can accept that!
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