I think Mr. Putin has found himself a brand new Vietnam, but also a much more capable form of the Local VC. Or another way to look at this is to go back to around 1860 when Lincoln sent 90,000 regulars into Northern Virginia. 858,000 men later he won (actually nobody knows how many as many companies just disappeared). Lincoln had anti war riots in the northeast and never really got control till 1866 (late 1866). I honestly think this is a rehash of sending 90,000 regulars into a sleepy state, and pissing everybody off. If R.E.Lee had not gotten tired of the fight, they might still be going at it in an underground fashion with no way out of it
On the other side of the street, it sorta looks like Mr. Putin has taken a bite of something too big to chew up. Yes he’s doing a lot of damage, but so is the other guy. He is soon to faced with another issue that nobody wants to think about. Warm Bodies! Where will they come from? (after he’s known to have quite a few). Those warm bodies back home are there for a reason far more important than anything the Ukraine has to offer. They are there to keep the wolves off his back. His best troops (experienced) are probably in Chechnya, and trust me they are just waiting for him to pull them out. That won’t work too well. Then there is a pocket called Kurdistan that often give the Russians chills down their spine while wetting their pants. So you look at Siberia as there’s many over there, and China will just love that one. What about the Murmansk region? Nope! Somebody else remember a land grab over there. Right now is a bad time to be 18 years old and Russian.
Next issue is equipment. Russia has now become the single largest supplier of weapons to the Ukraine. Are you simply going to quit sending tanks in there? Who’s going to pay for them as Russia is moving (was moving I guess) towards a capitalist economy. Workers do want to get some sort of subsistence, and there ain’t no cash. Arms sales will seriously decline now as the results from this fiasco can’t be hidden. Thus removing even more hard cash from his hands
So what will happen to Mr. Putin? Who knows, but it will happen in the blink of an eye. When those bodies start coming home by the train load the common people will be up in arms. He’ll then blame his General Staff (not that they were innocent). Firing squads and the Gulag will become the new retirement communities because he can’t take the blame. Finally the military will tell him to pack sand up his butt, and arrest him with a snap of the fingers. He’ll quietly hang himself in his cell at Lubeyanka Prision. The Army and Airforce will end up loosing 15,000 lives and billion up on billions of dollars in equipment, and no way to replace it. Chechnya, and Kudistan will be new countries. They will trade the northern islands they took from Japan for cash. Then they’ll start building a hand full of new gulags in Siberia for some well placed politicians.
gary
I was drafted right off the top of a long tall drink of water named Vickie. No big deal, but was also kinda scared. I didn’t even know what Vietnam was, and no idea where it was. I was just working in a boring job that paid the bills. Prior to that I was working, but got laid off. So in the end I was just waiting to get called back; even though I didn’t like that job very much. Kid up the street got drafted, and I knew right then I was the next kid on the block. I decided to join the Air Guard and they flew C119’s. Had the paper work and was going to deliver it on the next Monday night. I got drafted on Thursday morning! Had I gotten into that Air Guard unit I’d been sent over there about six or eight months later. Every guy I knew was working harder on getting out of the draft than anything else. I just went without a whimper (after all it was only 24 months). Of the guys I knew, perhaps six got drafted. None of the well placed politically active families sent their kids (ZERO) in my area. My Uncles are pissed because I didn’t go into the Marine Corp, and on the other side the Uncles are pissed cause I didn’t go in the Navy (I can’t swim 300 miles). I go to Ft. Campbell in June 67. It for the first six weeks was pretty scary, but by then I have them figured out. Goto AIT, and that was easy. Couple fist fights was about the only real excitement. I busted one of the cooks head and broke his hand, so I knew was the dedicated “pots & Pans man”. I learned that nobody goes home till I’m done, so I just kept them in there all night long till about 5:00am. Second time around; I’m the DRO. That cook tried his best to get into my mind, but told him he wasn’t good enough. Went from there to Track School, and that was even easier! Just wasn’t all that bad, and really only as bad as you made it. Did I want to be there? Hell No! I wanted to be on the back row at the local drive in with Vickie in the back seat. So Be It! By then I’d also ate up one fourth of that 24 months, and thought this ain’t so bad. Remember your last words as they will come to haunt you.
I get a whopping ten days leave, and then I’m on the way to Ft. Lewis Washington (what a pretty place). I think I’m there 48 hours and then shipped like fresh produce west. Guess that was the first week of December 67. I hit Cam Rhon Bay at about 4:00pm, and it was a cool 113 degrees. Red sand blowing everywhere like I was on the Planet Mars. They marched us past the white picket fence with everybody yelling insults at us (?). Still not so bad. Two days later I’m on a C130 headed to I-Corp (what’s that?). I get there and it’s about 85 degrees with a light drizzle and heavy over cast. It came to my mind that this place was kinda creepy. I leave there for Gator, and about mid January I said hey this ain’t so bad, and I think I can hold out eleven more months. These people came over in mass and had never moved off the hill! So I’m thinking I can survive eleven months on Gator. Tet came and went and I had an attitude adjustment. My unit started doing leap frog strikes to the south every two or three weeks, but never saw Gator again. All of a sudden I’m getting some second thoughts in the back of my head! I always thought I was gonna make it. By then Vickie had sent a series of three dear johns, and that eight by ten photo was now reserved for zeroing in rifles. Didn’t have time to miss her anyway. We head back north and we all think we’re going home again. Nay not so, as it only gets nastier from now on. I went on the first strike deep into the Que Son Valley. Folks said we were nuts (maybe we were), but I started to see it as a bad sign. Still I’m OK (mentally anyway). We set up an NDP right in the middle of the place and Top say for everybody to check the zero of your rifles as best you can. I shoot the M16 out to about 150 yards just fine. He says are you not gonna shoot that sixty? So I shoot at a dark triangle in the rocks maybe a couple hundred yards out. The triangle shoots back! Another “Oh Crap moment.” Mean while my Mom is glued to the TV every night watching for me on channel eight. From that point on it just got uglier & uglier.
At home kids ran off to Canada and Europe if they had access to cash. I just kept going and going. Hell I got less than a year to go in that 24 month stint. The Army comes up with this five months or less plan, and then they just let you out of the Army. Fred and I extend for 71 days. I came home, but Fred had to go home before the 71 days even started. (he was pissed). I’m kinda elated, and warm and dry for a change. I got to watch choppers full of bags, and walk thru the trauma unit in Chu Lai several times. I watch my squad disappear twice in the blink of an eye. Those Russian and Ukrainian kids will now receive that education. Twenty years from now they’ll question certain things they did as if they did them right or were they the wrong thing to do. They’ll see a face in a dream that they can’t remember what the name was. They’ll hear the scream for Mom! Hear myself begging for a belt over and over and that belt never comes. A certain sound or smell will scare you to death. (charcoal for me). Those kids will now get their turn. Yet those college kids and the ones that ran off will never get that education.
By the way I see Vickie once or twice a year, and she is still a good drink of water. I prefer Irish Whiskey
gary
