Communists and Nazis - A Witnesses' View

My time in Germany as a contractor was challenging, exhausting, and fun. I worked with a fine group of people, generally, though much of the management and leadership left much to be desired. There WERE some outstanding leaders there, but they could not overcome the many others that should not have been there.

But that's another story, altogether.

While there I met some wonderful people who had so many stories to tell. And many did. One of those was Janine, an wonderful, older woman who worked at the Gasthaus where my wife and I stayed for most of the 22 months we were in Europe. My wife stands in front of the establishment below.

 

I offended Janine one day. I asked where in Germany she was from.

"Do I look German to you?" she asked aghast. Janine was a flaxen-haired woman with nicotine-stained teeth. She carried the beauty of her youth, though clearly aged, with dignity, style, and determination. My only answer was, "Honestly Janine, everyone looks American to me!" 

America is a nation of immigrants after all.

"I am Polish!" announced Janine as she struck a regal pose. Then she told me her story.

But first, a story of war and invasion. 

Poland was formed from diplomacy and conquest in the aftermath of World War One. It's bulk was carved from the carcass of eastern Prussia, and expanded after wars against Republican Russia, the new nation of Ukraine, and the newly formed Soviet Union. It was a nation widely known for its martial traditions. Poles had fought with and against the Russian Empire, with the Prussians and the Germans (after German unification), and with Napoleon, always with the eye to reestablish the Polish nation.

Janine was born in the portion of Poland that had been Ukraine before the Polish conquest. It was this part of Poland that the USSR was granted in the secret Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty the week prior to the launch of World War Two. After the Nazi invasion, the USSR invaded eastern Poland two-and-a-half weeks later, retaking the land they believed to be theirs. Janine, a child at the time, and her mother (I assume her father was fighting the Germans or Soviets, or was conscripted into what was essentially slave labor for the conquerors) found themselves under the communist yoke for the next 21 months.

Then, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Very quickly Janine found herself under the rule of Nazis for nearly two years. 

German fortunes turned catastrophically in February 1943 at Stalingrad (now the city of Volgograd) and saw the steady and inexorable retreat that eventually led to defeat in 1945. Meanwhile, as the Soviets advanced steadily toward their home, Janine's mother had to make the decision to await liberation by the USSR's Red Army, or to run away with the Nazis.

They chose the Nazis.

"Really?" I asked. "Why?"

"The Nazis were much better and kinder than the communists." Apparently, it wasn't a difficult decision. 

Photo: Deutsche Fotothek of the Saxon State Library / State and University Library Dresden. Original caption: "Mann repariert Fahrradschlauch - Frauen holen Wasser am Brunnen auf der Straße" (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.)

Janine's family settled in Bavaria, in then-West Germany. She would go on to work for DeutscheBank in their office in Tripoli, Libya, where she would witness the US airstrikes against Libya's Gaddafi Regime after their attack on US troops at a night club in Germany. 

In some ways, I envied her view of some of the most striking events in history. But, on the other hand...

If anything, her insights into a system that was WORSE than Nazism were a revelation. For that, I am forever grateful.

 

Suicide Is Not A Military Innovation

I have been amused, if not amazed, by the attitudes of people concerning suicide bombings and the like as practiced by our most current enemy. In the north of Iraq in 2004 I tried to instill in my colleagues the necessity of vigilance and care in the defense of our compound perimeter due to the possibility of an assault. Most answered with comments along the lines of, "That'd be crazy. We'd kill em all."

Well of course.

This isn't the first time that we, as Americans have encountered an enemy so filled with hatred and a desire for glory in their Heaven that they would willingly die to kill us. World War II in the Pacific, especially in the Phillipines and Okinawa, showed a Japanese ability to die for their cause through suicide. Kamikaze (suicide attacks by aircraft), Banzai (suicide charges by infantry) and harikiri (self-disimbowelment), and similar naval tactics, were standard in the Imperial Japanese military. Thousands of American, British, Australian and other allied soldiers, sailors and Marines were killed by these tactics.

The Korean War saw United Nations Forces, led by the US, fight against human wave attacks by Communist Chinese forces. These were clearly suicidal, though probably not what one would consider suicide attacks.

But, just a few years later in Vietnam, US soldiers encountered suicide assaults in conjunction with Viet Cong and later North Vietnamese attacks. These troops would throw themselves across barbed and concertina wire barriers, risking sure death, to ease the way for their comrades to charge through the defensive perimeters. Other communist soldiers would strap satchel charges to their bodies and rush into command bunkers and ammunition stores, triggering their explosives once inside. Ask any old American infantry Vietnam veteran about these tactics. They were real and they were tactically effective.

This is an old tactic used in the modern day today by Muslim terrorist suicide bombers. Why should anyone be surprised?

Evidence We Won Iraq

Four months into my tour at Qayyarrah-West, Iraq, about January 2005, I wrote this. It seemed appropriate at the time and it still does. It started one night during our tour when my colleagues and I were discussing a variety of things before one of our seemingly never-ceasing meetings. We were discussing home, the war and our jobs, both in the military and in civilian life. We also were “smokin’ and jokin’,” just laughing, and enjoying good company. It’s really amazing what a soldier can find that will amuse him or her in a war zone. Some of the most mundane things will bring howls of laughter in the proper, and sometimes improper, context.

Of course we discussed this war, “Our War” if you will, and how long America will be in Iraq. Opinions range from two years to “till forever.” Of course, we can’t and won’t know when we will leave until it actually occurs. We won the Gulf War and we’re still in Kuwait, though we have left Saudi Arabia.

We’ve also won three wars in Europe over the past ninety years (World Wars I and II, and the Cold War) and we’re still there. It’s the same in Japan and Korea, of course. Promises or assurances when it comes to war and politics are normally useless. Most of us understand this. America was assured by President Clinton that we would be out of Bosnia-Herzegovina within a year. That was in the middle of the last decade and we just pulled the last of our peacekeeping “Implementation” and “Stabilization” forces out of that nation about ten years later. There isn’t a soldier alive then that didn’t know that those words were a pure, unadulterated lie. And we have troops just a few miles south of there in Kosovo still today.

Well, all this got me to thinking. Occasionally soldiers do that, you know. I decided that as a public service it might be good to let you know how to tell when “Our War” is over.
So, in keeping with the craze pioneered by late-night television host David Letterman, I present to you a list of “The Top Ten Ways to Know the Iraq War Has Been Won” in descending order from 10:

10. Your neighbor’s son (or daughter) returns home from Iraq with an Iraqi bride (or husband);

9. The Iraqi Liberal Democratic Party accuses the Iraqi Conservative Party of wanting to make the old people of Iraq eat pork and send their retirement funds to New World corporations because of proposed changes to Iraqi pension laws;

8. The political spending of the Iraqi presidential elections, run by American experts hired from inside The Beltway by Iraqi political parties, is being compared to the spending in California gubernatorial elections;

7. Iraqis protest the impending departure of American troops and bases from their towns, and form committees to go to Washington to lobby the latest Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission, Congress, the Pentagon and the President;

6. Your new state-of-the-art laser satellite receiver/gaming box/movie cube/television combo was manufactured in Fallujah, Iraq, deep in the heart of the Sunni Triangle;

5. Iraq’s leading retailer is Wal-Mart;

4. Iraq’s biggest new hip-hop group, Hezbollah’s Hellions, hit number one on the Billboard pop chart in the US;

3. American labor unions lobby Congress for protection from cheap Iraqi imports;

2. Hooters announces the opening of their new Baghdad restaurant;

And the number 1 way that Americans will know when we’ve won the Iraq War:

1. Teams of Iraqi lawyers arrive at the 9th Circuit Federal District Court in San Francisco and at The World Court in The Hague, Netherlands ready to file suit against the United States Department of Defense for damages incurred during Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and The Iraq War.

Again, America will have freed the oppressed.