As a kid growing in New York in the early 1950s there was no doubt who the existential enemy was, it was Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union. Russia had just demonstrated that it had its own nuclear weapons. The news set off a civil defense frenzy. People were building their own air raid shelters in their backyards. In grade school I remember the drills we had in the classroom on how to behave in the event of a nuclear attack. As part of President Harry Truman’s Civil Defense plan, we were instructed to duck under our desks and cover our heads. Some schools not mine, went so far as to issue metal dog tags to students so that first responders would be able to identify incinerated kids in the pile of rubble.
Those operatic drills aside, we didn’t spend a lot of time on geopolitical crises. The Red-Scare became part of our childhoods even as my WWII veteran dad’s hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower became president. We left Brooklyn for West Babylon, got our home via the GI-Bill and our lives were later little disrupted by the small war in far off Korea, which came and went incomprehensively, except everyone knew that Russia was behind it. What I never lost from that period of Cold War was the notion that Russia was America’s sworn enemy. They were Communists, did not even have a GI bill, and in fact had little or nothing except their scary A-Bombs.
On October 10th, CNN and other news organizations ran a heartbreaking photograph from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine that reminded me of the shelters and air raid drills. It is a mother and child holding hands. Only the hands are visible. The rest of their bodies are covered in the rubble of a building just destroyed by a Russian guided aerial bomb. The mother had just applied nail polish perhaps ready to go out when the air raid sirens wailed. She is clutching her small child’s hand in a manner that makes clear from the picture that the mother was trying to comfort and protect her baby during what must have been their terrifying last moments. Subsequent news reports indicated that at least 23 people were killed in that strike including four children.
What I don’t get is why President Trump doesn’t seem to share the obvious fact Russia is the aggressor. He grew up during the Cold War. I get that he wants to be the peacemaker. What I don’t get is who in the White House thought it was a good idea to stab Ukraine in the back last week and disable the Starshield system that has allowed President Zelensky’s outnumbered and outgunned forces to survive the Russian onslaught.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, and more murderously four years ago in 2022. Thousands like that mother and child in Zaporizhzhia have died. I have no doubt which side I am on. Most Americans agree. Russia is still the enemy.