Good morning everyone. Today is Giving Tuesday! I jumped the gun a little bit last night (it was already Tuesday in Kyiv) to take advantage of Cyber Monday (in Arkansas) to send an IFAK to @UkraineAidOps. I am asking my readers to give something today to some organization that is
hate, we can send love and defiance. At this point just about every trooper in the Ukrainian Army has something from the West. From government supplied aid to little "care packages" from people like us that could be a chest carrier, IFAK or radio. The Ukrainian people know there
are tens of thousands of us who are invested in making sure they come home alive and have something and someone to come home too. We are a second home front for them. They know they can focus on the business end of the war because we will handle the non-kinetic tasks like making
sure politicians like @JohnBoozman, @SenTomCotton, and @RepFrenchHill know to send more, send better and send now. That we will bash Russian propaganda efforts designed to weaken that support often as a #FELLA and member of #NAFO. Most importantly though because it aids both the
political support and dis-info bonking is our giving. It has real impact on politicians and public perceptions of the war with the massive bonus that it also has a real impact on the battlefield. This picture says so much
I don't know if that chest carrier was government aid or donation provided but it could be either. Either way he is alive and our donations offer him the chance to stay that way. So please give. It matters and you matter because they matter. See ya'll in a few hours on
Let's talk casualty care. The UMOD has Russian deaths at 90K and if they are still tracking along with Russia's own MOD admissions that got leaked several months ago then this number is at least in the ball park or reality. It certainly squares with the images we see coming from
Bakhmut. Those types of trench based positional fights chew up men. The provision of the M30A1 MLRS rocket certainly won't help Russia stop the bleeding... On the other side there is the (corrected) claim that Ukraine has suffered 100K casualties: dead, wounded, missing, and KIA.
With later speculation that the real numbers are 10K dead and 40K seriously wounded. Now none of those numbers are real but they do offer insights. 90K Russian deaths begs a serious question: how many wounded. The traditional ratio of dead to wounded was 1:3. I think that might
Why Bakhmut? Its a common question as people try to figure out what Russia hopes to gain from a battle that now resembles a WWI battlefield right down to the mud and unburied bodies. I am going to try and answer that question, or at least pose a reasonable explanation. Firstly
there are 3 battles you never want to fight, though all 3 are very common in military history. 1. The battle your enemy wants you to fight. 2. The battle where your enemy is. 3. The battle you have to win. All 3 require you to give up valuable tools like the initiative, room to
maneuver, and time. For the Russians Bakhmut has become all 3. The battle started for rather simple reasons. After the Russian breakthrough at Popasnaya Bakhmut was simply the next blocking position taken up by the Ukrainians. Thats where the enemy (of the Russians) was so that
Short one today, gotta go to work early, I think I am gonna get told to go down the street and pee in a cup lol. DOT reqs require randoms to keep the motoring public safe from intoxicated truck drivers. No worries, I am working towards my 18th year clean. These are the easiest
in the world to pass. No studying, no prep work well at least until they ban caffeine then I am screwed. Speaking of tests, the Russian Army continues to fail the hardest test in the world: combat. Just saw a meme from a well known troll page claiming Ukraine is only defending
so hard to protect a child trafficking ring. The poster was so close to right but as a Russian failed 180 from the truth. Ukraine is defending Bakhmut so hard to prevent a child trafficking ring. Every inch of Ukraine the Russian's occupy is followed by filtration, torture, rape,
I've noticed that my observation comparing #Bakhmut to #Verdun and #Passchendaele are now pretty much the accepted comparisons, and they should be. What a nightmare battlefield. There are however some things that make it a very much 21st century war vs just WWI redux. First the
suffering is in some ways worse. The troops from late 1915-18 had become masters of trench warfare. Trenches were deep with duckboards to keep heads below the bullet line and feet above the mud. Dug outs were artillery resistant and could only be hit by happenstance and could
not be individually targeted. The night while full of terrors at least allowed movement behind the trenches and for raiding parties across no man's land. Well crewed and directed artillery in WWI could hit a fairly well-defined area but it had to be an area. It was not going to
There are a lot of different roles one can do as a #FELLA and part of #NAFO. Some people make wicked memes, forge FELLA's, troll Russian diplomats, host spaces... Me I am just an essayist. I give as I can but my gift is writing so that is what I can offer up every day. Many give
more and giving is the mission they self selected when joining NAFO. A few however take on the riskier jobs... fund raising. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Like I said earlier, I trust @copesint and @WBearpJr and that is good enough for me. If @Pogggio1 is innocent and
herself a victim it will come out in the wash. I don't think all the money she raised was embezzled, something went pear shaped somewhere. Intent matters, but not as much as people think. It is either on the up and up or its not when its time to cut bait. The danger now isn't
Today's essay is for everyone who has to take time out of their bashing Russian dis-info accounts to explain why Ukraine MUST be better than Putin's goon squads running around perpetrating a #GenocideOfUkrainians. This really should not need to be said but here we are anyway.
First the Laws of War prohibit war crimes. Beginning in the mid-to-late 1800's the great powers began to formulate a series of rules and laws that would hopefully lessen the impact of war on the civilians. They were imperfect, often ignored and reflected the views where
imperialism, colonialism and wars of conquest were still acceptable. Still between 1864 and 1907 we had the First Geneva Conventions covering the sick and wounded in war and the Hauge Conventions. This is what took us into WWI and even then during that horrible war the High