I go to Reddit for cute cat videos (really calms the mind at end of the day) and sometimes guitar instruction videos. I NEVER watch violence, fights, death, car crashes, etc... But for some reason I view each and every clip from Ukraine showing (1 sided I know) Russians being destroyed. Seeing the aftermath of all the destroyed Russian (crap) hardware, convoys, the captured equipment and - admittedly very sad - the clips of dead Russians is - not the right word - "satisfying".
I was a cold war guy (airborne Russian linguist!) so my real-life wartime mission is happening now and some of my buddies I flew with are still engaged albeit in a civilian support side. I have no romantic notion of getting in the action but there is a familiarity with what my mission was and what the current missions are providing.
Side note - 1 of my best buddies now in civilian support role at Offut married a Russian gal a few years ago. She's adamantly against the war but still has many friends and family in the motherland who still drink the kool-aid. They also have some Ukraine friends who feel somewhat the same way but there is a backstory... Guess they (friends Ukraine friends) were opening up a store/business and paid all the usual "fees" - legal and not. HUGE part of the former Soviet republics but think that's common knowledge. My friends friends LOST out when - as he told me - one of zelenskyy's associates out-corrupted them and they lost the business opportunity.
What I still have to remind myself is that US levels of corruption are real, generally accepted and simply a part of the fabric of our society (rich guys, politicians have different rules). But when the level of corruption (oligarchs, Putin, all those m-f-ing killers) in Russia is contrasted and you see the complacency/acceptance/ignorance of the common Russian folk who simply accept this as part of their lives it is overwhelming.
Fornicate Putin with the thousands of corpses he and his ilk have created on the world stage. I'm still pissed we appear to be dithering with providing REAL military aid in the form of planes, long-range artillery, air defense systems beyond the handhelds, anti-ship weapons (UK apparently supplied harpoon system which may have just damaged Russian guided missile frigate), energy and banking sanctions while Putin resupplies, rearms and ramps up for another full-on assault in the east to secure his foothold in Crimea.
I was a cold war guy (airborne Russian linguist!) so my real-life wartime mission is happening now and some of my buddies I flew with are still engaged albeit in a civilian support side. I have no romantic notion of getting in the action but there is a familiarity with what my mission was and what the current missions are providing.
Side note - 1 of my best buddies now in civilian support role at Offut married a Russian gal a few years ago. She's adamantly against the war but still has many friends and family in the motherland who still drink the kool-aid. They also have some Ukraine friends who feel somewhat the same way but there is a backstory... Guess they (friends Ukraine friends) were opening up a store/business and paid all the usual "fees" - legal and not. HUGE part of the former Soviet republics but think that's common knowledge. My friends friends LOST out when - as he told me - one of zelenskyy's associates out-corrupted them and they lost the business opportunity.
What I still have to remind myself is that US levels of corruption are real, generally accepted and simply a part of the fabric of our society (rich guys, politicians have different rules). But when the level of corruption (oligarchs, Putin, all those m-f-ing killers) in Russia is contrasted and you see the complacency/acceptance/ignorance of the common Russian folk who simply accept this as part of their lives it is overwhelming.
Fornicate Putin with the thousands of corpses he and his ilk have created on the world stage. I'm still pissed we appear to be dithering with providing REAL military aid in the form of planes, long-range artillery, air defense systems beyond the handhelds, anti-ship weapons (UK apparently supplied harpoon system which may have just damaged Russian guided missile frigate), energy and banking sanctions while Putin resupplies, rearms and ramps up for another full-on assault in the east to secure his foothold in Crimea.
