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This week, Europe and the Americas remembers the victory of the Allied Forces over Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy which drew closed the Second World War (WWII). Allies like the United States and the Soviet Union whom were vastly different and future advisories, but all gathered together to stop an evil not seen since Tamerlane a millennia past and hopefully never return again.
For many of our European cousins, it meant parades for the civilians and speeches for politicians, and for the few remaining men & women who served their countries, don their metals and awards to be remembered as heroes once again. It is a time of great remembrance, from the British Channel Islands to Moscow, people remember the bravery in horrific times and honor their dead.
Yet we in the United States have taken little notice of the Victory celebrations; our Grandparents and Great-Grandparents who fought the Nazi’s, came home, forgot and moved on with our lives, save only the hidden remnants of a nation waging war – like the box of mementos my Grandparents kept from the War: “A” car fuel discs, clothing coupons, milk and butter coupons. Only paper. Perhaps it is in the American psyche that we always look toward the future and never dwell on the past, just like the mementos to have their place in history. Fotten in the Attic until some event compels us to remember. This seems to be a recurrence of history that we forget until we are compelled to remember.
Sir Winston Churchill once said, "Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it!" From our historical learning, we have not had this lesson. The last time a foreign army, which was the British Army and Royal Marines, march on American soil was in 1812; the last great carnage on our homeland was during the American Civil War (or the War between States) which ended over 147 years. The men and women who secured the blessings of freedom for Europe on “VE-DAY”, or "C День победы" to my Russian friends, was a result of our nation waging war – we were not a nation under occupation!
We did not see the Luftwaffe bomb New York or Los Angeles, nor SS Waffen Panzers roll across the tall grass prairie of Oklahoma or Wheat fields of Kansas; which I am thankful to a merciful God not having a family history of seeing this.
But we were the exception.
In learning about the culture of Russia, and a little from the Soviet Union era, from friends I have through LJ, I have come to appreciate something rather startling and frightening to me about what my friends call “Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́” (BOB), or The Great Patriotic War , was not just to stop Hitler’s mad-men from invasion, but it was a fight for survival!
I have not encountered a Russian or Ukrainian for whom BOB, spared any family members – Uncles & Aunts, Grandfathers and Grandmothers, or older Siblings maternal and paternal.
Some reporting several family members’ dead whom were not in uniform – but civilians for whom Hitler's’ “kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will fall” strategy meant killing them too.
Just how many?
The total number of dead during BOB in former Soviet Union (That is Russia AND the Ukraine) is about 27 Million. To put this into perspective, that is every man, woman, and child living today in the State of Texas dead .
This alone, is cause for my American friends to give pause – and remember those who fought, and those whom perished.
For many of our European cousins, it meant parades for the civilians and speeches for politicians, and for the few remaining men & women who served their countries, don their metals and awards to be remembered as heroes once again. It is a time of great remembrance, from the British Channel Islands to Moscow, people remember the bravery in horrific times and honor their dead.
Yet we in the United States have taken little notice of the Victory celebrations; our Grandparents and Great-Grandparents who fought the Nazi’s, came home, forgot and moved on with our lives, save only the hidden remnants of a nation waging war – like the box of mementos my Grandparents kept from the War: “A” car fuel discs, clothing coupons, milk and butter coupons. Only paper. Perhaps it is in the American psyche that we always look toward the future and never dwell on the past, just like the mementos to have their place in history. Fotten in the Attic until some event compels us to remember. This seems to be a recurrence of history that we forget until we are compelled to remember.
Sir Winston Churchill once said, "Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it!" From our historical learning, we have not had this lesson. The last time a foreign army, which was the British Army and Royal Marines, march on American soil was in 1812; the last great carnage on our homeland was during the American Civil War (or the War between States) which ended over 147 years. The men and women who secured the blessings of freedom for Europe on “VE-DAY”, or "C День победы" to my Russian friends, was a result of our nation waging war – we were not a nation under occupation!
We did not see the Luftwaffe bomb New York or Los Angeles, nor SS Waffen Panzers roll across the tall grass prairie of Oklahoma or Wheat fields of Kansas; which I am thankful to a merciful God not having a family history of seeing this.
But we were the exception.
In learning about the culture of Russia, and a little from the Soviet Union era, from friends I have through LJ, I have come to appreciate something rather startling and frightening to me about what my friends call “Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́” (BOB), or The Great Patriotic War , was not just to stop Hitler’s mad-men from invasion, but it was a fight for survival!
I have not encountered a Russian or Ukrainian for whom BOB, spared any family members – Uncles & Aunts, Grandfathers and Grandmothers, or older Siblings maternal and paternal.
Some reporting several family members’ dead whom were not in uniform – but civilians for whom Hitler's’ “kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will fall” strategy meant killing them too.
Just how many?
The total number of dead during BOB in former Soviet Union (That is Russia AND the Ukraine) is about 27 Million. To put this into perspective, that is every man, woman, and child living today in the State of Texas dead .
This alone, is cause for my American friends to give pause – and remember those who fought, and those whom perished.
