Perspectives on Ukraine (1 & 2): Feelings and History

It began a few weeks before Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. People who know me began asking me what I thought of the situation.

I studied that area of the world formally for some years, and I’ve watched with more than the typical American’s interest ever since. So it’s no surprise that virtually every day brought at least one e-mail message, text message, phone call, or face-to-face query from a friend, family member, neighbor, or coworker. What will happen next? How bad will it get? What does Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin want, and how far will he go to get it? Has he lost his mind? What should the US and the rest of the world do — and not do — to stop him?

These queries have become less frequent as the war has proceeded. Inflation, abortion, and the mass slaughter of schoolchildren and teachers are more than mere distractions; they deserve our sober attention too. But most of the questions I’ve heard about Ukraine are still open. I still hear them often, and they still matter immensely.

One More Habit: Remember (and Something to Begin It)

I pondered and refined my list of Freedom Habits for about two years before building this site and rolling it live. (I did so off and on, not continuously.) It’s a good list. And two months hadn’t passed before I realized that I had missed at least one: Remember.

That thought struck on Veterans Day. And it stuck, too. So I’ve added a habit to the site, with links, its own page, and so forth.

Let’s start by remembering my fellow Cornellian, Dawn Seymour. Fifty years before I showed up in Ithaca for graduate school, she received her undergraduate degree there, stayed to work as an instructor . . . and soon declared that she wanted to learn to fly.

Which she did – and she married a pilot along the way. She flew B-17s on daily training missions for a year and a half during World War II.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think her 1,100 fellow WASPs — including the 38 who lost their lives — deserve to have the rest of us remember.

Read Dawn Seymour’s story here.

Come to think of it, all of this is appropriate to Pearl Harbor Day too, which is today. But you remembered that, didn’t you?