On the Ukrainian International Legion
I had planned to spend a quarter of this year meditating in either Burma or Japan. Instead history, repeating the twentieth century in just two years, has followed a global pandemic with war in Europe. Ukraine has called her citizens home from around the world to her defense, and has asked friends to join as well.
About 20,000 volunteers have already arrived there, and I leave tomorrow to join them. I find that other volunteers, including those staying stateside to funnel others, immediately understand why. My friends, who know me as a deeply unintimidating person, don’t. In this my own history repeats itself. I had similar reactions a decade ago and more, when I joined the US Army and deployed to Afghanistan, but I am if anything less able to explain the decision this time around.
To be sure, there are geopolitical complexities. NATO is not a purely defensive force. During the Cold War, we encouraged Hungary to revolt against the Soviets, and then left them to die, and arguably the United States has done something similar here. In truth, had the Russians simply taken Donetsk and Luhansk, the world would merely have tutted.
Nevertheless, decisive action does require a measure of moral clarity. I am not much of a nationalist and do not hate the Russians. For me the brightline is simply that the Ukrainians have the taste of freedom and are unwilling to lose it.
Invoking freedom as a cause sends the wrong socioeconomic signals and sounds intellectually and even emotionally naive. It is not aesthetic. A mad Tom Wolfe coked up on Vietnam insanity would go over better. And the notion of freedom is often used as a bludgeon to justify America’s own wars in service of financial empire, or hedged about and limited to well-defined political rights.
Yet freedom is broader, vaguer, harder to see. Freedom is a matter of culture, a lifeway. When a people spend most of their time thinking about vacations and holidays, love-lives and families, a generative future, when they write and joke about every subject under the sun with no fear in sight, when they think differently to their peers and yet hold their livelihood, they are free. We have this freedom, and so do the Ukrainians. They would not know how to live under Putin.
We have seen this story play out before, in East and West Germany, in North and South Korea. One side won and lived freely, the other lost and generations lived in fear. This is no ideal or abstraction. Whether the Ukrainians win matters everything to them, and also to the peace and freedom of Europe.
Putin and his many Russian supporters believe that a great power has the moral right to invade a democratic people, when it is expedient, and to effect regime change. Meanwhile, Scotland and Quebec vote on whether to secede from their countries, and no one shoots them. Not since the Second World War has one side been so clearly in the right.
Whatever happens will feel obvious in retrospect, and informed people have already predicted victory for both sides, but as I write around Day 13 of the invasion, the war hangs very much in the balance. The Russians continue to advance, especially in the south, with a major assault expected on encircled Kyiv within days. Success in one region may free up forces to throw at another, the effect of a dam bursting. Putin’s domestic hold on power has increased. US intelligence - shockingly accurate so far - has floated the possibility of a 10-year war, which is to say the Ukrainians launch an insurgency. But the Ukrainians have held back the bear and may beat him yet, and every week that passes weakens Putin and increases the Ukrainians’ future freedom.
Zelensky, a wild card of history, is only (and fully) doing his job: representing the will of the people. Those people, including Ukrainian girls and grandmothers, are throwing Molotov cocktails at the invaders. The Churchill of our time has asked foreign fighters to help, and those of us who are already combat veterans can make a significant difference. We are in a race against Putin’s timetable: can we arrive before the Ukrainian power centers fall?
Some of us will join the Foreign Legion directly, but they cannot process all the volunteers, and others will join a territorial militia. We will be given arms but not money, so that we are not classified as mercenaries. Nevertheless the Russians have announced they will not accept our surrender, which is excellent encouragement.
Anticipating death too hard, absent a fatal diagnosis, always seems a bit precious. Still and all, I can’t help noting that recently I have seen all my friends, gone on delicious ski trips, had wonderful meditations, and been given ample opportunity to set my affairs in order.
When I was younger I worried terribly about wasting time, and whether I would arrive at some fulfilling, validating success. In truth, no one can waste time, any more than one can save time. All we have is a stream of sensations, and our precious gift is to experience each one as completely as we can, including fear and death.
It’s unwise to pin hopes on events over which one has no control (which in the final analysis includes even the movements of the mind). I hope to bear witness to each moment, and to take effective action against the enemy. Helping the Ukrainians is a good thing to do in the world, and a thing I can do, and doing hard things for someone else is good for the soul.
I am deeply grateful to my family, particularly my brothers who have helped me prepare, and to my friends around the world for their expressions of support. Even if the Ukrainians fight a very long war, I think we ought to continue to send more aid and to press sanctions on Russia, while avoiding WWIII until Putin actually launches nukes. It is madness to punish individual Russians who are often also victims of the regime, and to throw away the many cultural gifts of the great Russian people.
Слава Україні!
For some journeys, you prepare like this:
Make sure the stove is off.
Fold your clothes for ready use.
Throw out the old tomatoes, leave the slightly-hard cheese.
For at least one journey, you prepare like this:
Turn off all the bills.
Get rid of what you can, leave instructions for the rest.
Your unfinished novel wasn’t so great. The love letter is.