"War Hero"

 
I think we can all wish that we had peace and that we were not going to "study war no more" but if I were you I would not hold my breathe waiting for that.  In the meantime, given that Mr. Bone Spur tells us that he is a war hero, we can ask ourselves if this moron and traitor actually knows what a war hero is.  I doubt it.  For those of you who may not have given it much thought, I can recommend the citations of the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMOH) as a way of making this abstract concept somewhat real.  

There are several rules about getting a CMOH and they include: (a) there have to be living witnesses of the event, (b) whatever the candidate did has to be beyond doing their job bravely and competently, (c) the commanding officer has to recommend you, (d) one of the congressmen from wherever our candidate hero is from has to sponsor it and (e) congress has to vote for it.  The CMOH is not without controversy in its 164 year history, but its track record is pretty good.

So, for example, you do not get a CMOH for merely advancing against the enemy while being shot at.  Everyone is expected to do that.  However, you might get a CMOH if, while your unit is under fire, you single handedly take out an enemy machine gun nest while the rest of your platoon is (sensibly) sheltered for cover and praying.  And then, having eliminated the machine gun in single combat if you do it two more times before they kill you, then you *might* get a CMOH, posthumously.

Or to choose another example, if you are known to be a complete screwup until your first combat mission whereupon the bomber you are on is set upon by waves of enemy fighters, the fuel tank explodes, 5 of your crewmates are hit by enemy fire and are bleeding out on the floor of the bomber, and then, suddenly, demonstrating behavior no one would have believed you were capable of,  you spring into action, alternate between putting out the fire in the center of the airplane, shooting at enemy fighters and driving them away, tending to the wounded to stop the bleeding, getting at least three of them into parachutes and out a hole in the fuselage to hopefully save their lives because the plane you are on is certainly going to explode and/or crash and kill everyone at any moment.  And somehow the bomber survives and you land.  And then when the brass comes to give you your medal for improbably saving the day, no one can find you because you are in the kitchen peeling potatoes as punishment for some other screwup for which you are well known. If you do that you might get a CMOH and plausibly be considered a "war hero".

Trust me, whatever DJT, the rapist and felon may be, he is certainly not a "war hero"  

Will Tsar Vladimir Go To War in Ukraine?

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Somewhere in the first three episodes of HBO's Peacemaker, our hero, who has collapsed in stress earlier in the episode, regains his moral outrage and willingness to kill to keep the peace and says something like "Eat peace, motherfuckers!" before he blows the bad guy's head off.  The best way to do what Vladimir, the Keeper of Peace, is doing is to not let anyone, even your own side, know what you plan to do. 

But there is a list of things that people have learned to do before battle begins and one can observe these things and get a sense for what is about to happen.  Different sides do different things, but basic principles apply.  This is more about guidelines than it is about inflexible rules.  All of these are pretty logical in retrospect and will make sense to you as well. All of these have relevant historical precedent.  And it is because of these things that people after the war ask "how could you not have known?" Hindsight has perfect vision.

Here is a short list in the context of the Russian/Ukraine situation.  Russia pulls most of its personnel out of their embassies and consulates.  Citizens are warned to leave the country.  Classified papers and other material in these embassies are destroyed.  Someone sends special forces to the potential site of conflict to help get their diplomats and citizens out.  Live ammunition is released to the units.  Leaves are cancelled.  The logistics of war are completely over the top amazing and even if you are not sure war is happening, certain really big things have to be put into motion (e.g. Russian amphibious ships are sortied and people are not sure where they are going... maybe they are just going on vacation).  Various countries start running around the clock missions to provide critical munitions to their ally, munitions that they might have kept a very tight grip on previously, but not now.  "Here" they say, "Take these antitank weapons.  They are our very best and God Speed".  Border incursions by air and ground increase in tempo until they seem to be almost continuous.

Units start disappearing.  Brigades, Divisions, maybe Corps, go to radio and electronic silence and move and you dont know where they went.  Units show up where you didn't expect them.  People at the front start reporting noises of equipment that they had not heard before.  The listening posts report in, something is happening.  Airplanes and other assets are dispersed.  Your networks say that war begins in 3 days but you know they have been wrong before.  Warnings are issued.  Alert levels are raised.  People lose sleep and they are armed and nervous. Mistakes happen.

War is not inevitable, but at some point information entropy takes over and you either give the "go order" or you dont.  And if you say "go", at some point you may not be able to pull them back.

There is a lot of history here.  War is perfectly plausible in this part of the world.  You may not agree, but Russia has interests here.  Obviously so does Ukraine.  Personally I think they are going to do it.  God Speed.

 

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