seanessay.com …Fear of the very existence of honest Ukraine impelled violence, for a dictator’s lies always require violence to exist, just as violence always requires lies to exist…From ideas of Solzhenitsyn (Sean Crawford ) A young man asked me, “Do you work here?” (My rucksack and tourist hat were in a locker) I answered “No, but try […]
Canada Versus the Orcs, 1972
seanessay.com My niece, two decades ago, asked me, “Uncle, what’s a communist?” The girl was innocent about the Reds smothering free thought over a quarter of the globe: Just as certain adult well meaning liberals are today. As an American philosopher would say—Looking at you, Germany—those who forget the history of Russian Orcs are condemned […]
Forsaking Freedom
seanessay.com Would I give up a year or two of my life, or ask a young man to do so, for the cause of freedom? Right now there are nations in Europe, not all of them in NATO, that enforce a year or two of conscription, what Americans loosely call “the draft.” I can see […]
Recruit School is Really Scary
seanessay.com (under a thousand words) One of my college classmates sobbed during her brief time in a British police academy. She later wondered, as many civilians do: Why are recruit classes for police and the armed forces so hard? When civilians ask “What time did they make you get up in the morning?” or “How […]
From Parade Drill to Patrolling
seanessay.com (under 1,000 words) Sometimes I think about free citizens rushing into training for the war in Ukraine. I imagine older volunteers would guard prisoners and checkpoints. As for the younger guys, I guess their commanders could seize every spare moment to train them, beyond the indelible training of being in the “front lines.” Or, […]
A Child’s View for the Killing in Ukraine
essaysbysean.com Say, are you reading this in the future, having a bird’s eye view, cold and objective, from your flying car? Having grown up among Ukrainian immigrants I still want to say, “the Ukraine” although in standard English everyone leaves off the definite article. Today while the Russians are invading I wonder, thinking of Sting’s […]