Thanks guys! The decompression needles should be on their way across the pond. I'm in contact with North American Rescue in Ukraine and will be using them to help me get more items inside Ukraine. Clockwork, this is where I'll be sending your cash donation once I get a few more links in the chain established.
BMW: I'll let you know as soon as my brother has your supplies in hand, and we'll get them added to the decompression needles before we go and send everything in country.
Your guys's timing with this is damn impeccable though... I meant to touch on this during the writing and it kind of slipped my mind yesterday as I was getting caught up. I mentioned that we all exchanged gifts at Vikki's place, but I didn't mention that Sergei had one for me as well:
I'm not sure it was necessary, but I blacked out the patches that would give away his unit. Better to err on the side of safety for now.
I'll title this "Military Souvenirs"
People collect souvenirs for lots of reasons. Prior to service, most of mine were from family vacations, and they reminded me of where I was, what we were doing, and the good times that were happening at the time. Often these were accompanied by photos, laughter, and of course stories (some of them were even true!).
This all changed on the day before my first deployment. Yes, I was TANKED. We were shoving off the next day, and a squadron mate of mine and I were determined to kill every last brain cell we had, and possibly our livers, before we left on that deployment. Before closing the bar down, I saw a chalkboard on the wall near where we were shooting pool. It had the names and sometimes ranks of military members who had been through the pub, and sometimes a quick blurb (maybe a quote, or their squadron, or which carrier group they were with). I was surprised that no one had messed it up (even accidentally, while drunk).
This was post 9-11 mind you. I graduated boot camp like 3-days before the towers were hit. We had to be bussed down to our tech schools because the airports were still closed and it was easily the most exhilarating experience of my life. But I digress.
We were about to go on our first war-time deployment. It'd been over a year since the twin towers, and we were being sent to Iraq. I think we all knew we were pretty safe from experiencing anything combat related on an aircraft carrier, but still... 21-year-old me was going to war! This was weird. What was weirder was I found myself writing my name on the board, and something dawned on me at that very inebriated moment that I'd later read in Stephen Ambrose's novel "Band of Brothers".
I won't do what he wrote justice so I wont try. But there's a difference between the "souvenirs" I had prior to this exact moment collected, and "military souvenirs"... And I had just left my first one there in chalk.
Some military souvenirs let a non participant relate in some way to the participant. It allows for a shared experience between the person who was there to the person who wasn't. Binoculars, milsurp firearms (of which, I've collected many), combat knives, patches, coins. They all offer us the tiniest glimpse into what was the entire experience. Often historical.
Other military souvenirs are collected because the collector needs to know that there will be some semblance of life after everything they're going through now.
For the front line fighters, they're facing down the absolute worst of what humanity has to offer. We send them to do things and see things that violate everything we've been taught by schools, churches, and even by our governing officials. Sure they might have good reason, and sure they might be right, but that doesn't change the absolute hell they are currently living in every day. For them, there needs to be the promise of a better life afterwards. A time when this wont be happening. A time when the souvenir they've collected will make an appearance and they'll share it with those around them. At a barbecue, over beers, with good friends... They'll reflect on it together and say "Damn, remember when...?"
Only then can they really look back on the hell they've survived and remember the good things that were there too. No where else on earth will you find comrades and a sense of absolute purpose the way you will when you're in a combat environment. Nowhere else in life will you find a bond between friends the way you will when you're with your unit. And it's important for the collector to know that they can look forward to being somewhere better with those friends when it's over.
So when Sergei gave me his patches as a military souvenir, it meant a lot more to me that something I'd look back on and think "man, that was crazy". As a member of the military, he's very aware of what a military souvenir is at a time like this, and I do look forward to the day when all this is over. One of those patches will make an appearance somehow when this is over and we're drinking beers. While I can't promise I'll be able to say "damn, remember when...?" to him in Ukrainian, I do know I wont have to.
