Trust but Verify

Prelude to WW III

 February 2022

 

Writing anything is a challenge under the current circumstances with so much of my heart and mind being bombarded by the Russian/Ukrainian war. In all fairness, I must be transparent. First, our extended family through marriage extends from the comfort of living on the Texas Llano Estacado to the Dallas Metroplex, onto Chicago, and extending into Poland and Ukraine.


  
 


 

Secondly, having traveled twice to Russia, I have found it to have beautiful and well-attended houses of worship and populated with what I refer to as ordinary people. Men, women, and children with all the same characteristics you and I have—with one exception. We live in the land of the free while they live under an evil despot.

On one of our trips, we dined in a commune with a highly educated couple and their child. They were kind and generous people. We had a pleasant time exchanging topics about our countries. In the end, they were curious about the American press so freely expounding on our President. It was not something that took place in Russia.

I asked their opinion of President Putin. The wife offered an embarrassed chuckle and said, “They will tell us when he is dead.” That one sentence spoke volumes about the differences between our two countries.

On the long trip home, my wife and I discussed Russia. Our thoughts were identical—a huge, beautiful country where we enjoyed our travels, but would never want to live there. There is no freedom.

In the United States, so much is taken for granted when compared to our European counterparts. Most of us inherited our freedom because of wars fought on distant shores. My wife and I have traveled to Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, and France. There was a lot to see and learn.

In much of Europe, things are the opposite of what we find in the USA. While their current younger generations may have inherited their freedom, their parents and grandparents fought and died for it. Those memories are fresh in their minds.

This brings me to the present. Ever since I was 17 years old, I have either been a Marine or a police officer. Both professions put me in a military or quasi-military organization in which lives were forfeited—some by friends and colleagues; others by those who opposed us.

Today we see horrors similar to World War II being played out on our television screens as Russian forces invaded Ukraine. The invasion is wrong. It is criminal. I don’t need to wait for President Putin to die before I can give an opinion of him—he is a war criminal.

Unfortunately, the common Russian people cannot speak their thoughts about President Putin. The Gulag is not far away.

In the near future, my newest novel, “The Russian,” will be published. Come, follow me into the desert where the Russian Mafia seeks to profit at the expense of the heart and soul of our people.



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Visit us at www.thomasjnichols.com/ and https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-J.-Nichols/e/B00BD861OM

 

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