By Major Van Harl USAF Ret
This article was first published on AmmoLand News in March of 2014, fast forward to 2021 and once more it looks like the Russians are on the march.
Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)- The Russians are warming up their human content, sausage-making equipment once again. The below column was written in 2014 and sadly I believe it needs to be re-read.
Putin wants Ukraine back and he is massing his troops and military hardware on the Russian / Ukraine border. Back when the old Soviet Union fell apart and Ukraine got its independence from the Soviets, they owned a very large stockpile of nuclear weapons, including ballistic missiles.
The US and the UK convinced Ukraine to give up their Nukes to the Russians in exchange for an agreement that the US and the UK would come to the aid of Ukraine should it ever be attacked. Well, it would appear the US and UK sort of failed Ukraine when Russia moved in and took the Crimean away. As I recall O’bam sent blankets as a source of military supplies to help Ukraine try and stop the Russians. It did not work.
It is believed that the entire Russian military is being readied to go to war. This includes the calling up of all the reserve forces that Russia has. Not an inexpensive task if the entire mission is to “just” scare Ukraine. I would suggest Putin is not going to waste all his petrol dollars on a bluff.
If we have to shift US military assets to the European theater and weaken our position in the Pacific, do you really think China would pass up this golden opportunity to make a “play” in their backyard?
We in the US may find out a lot sooner than expected how our old military draft system will work when we start calling up our young women folk.
As a private citizen you need to think long and hard about how you will function if, during this potential conflict, the US power grid goes down in the middle of winter, as well as all of our online capabilities.
Ukrainian Swamp Sausage making in 2022 could be very ugly and very painful for a lot of unprepared people.
Have You Ever Seen Sausage Made?
First, you have to kill something, a cow, a pig, a lamb, or even a chicken. Then you have to butcher the carcass into smaller manageable chunks of meat. Next, you get out the meat grinder and push the chunks of meat through, to grind it into the consistency of a hamburger. Now you add the spices and other ingredients to flavor the meat to your liking. Once the meat is coated with your choice of flavoring you push that meat back through the grinder again.
This time the meat is injected into tubes (pig guts) and re-formed from a living animal to a shape and consistency you, the sausage maker, and consumer want.
Now think of the Ukraine as sausage. In the 1930s Stalinist Russia systematically starved the Ukrainian people. Those who attempted to escape a slow death would try to hide in the swamps of North West Ukraine. But when you are hungry you do not move very fast and Soviet troops would run the Ukrainian people down on the edge of the Pripyat Marshes.
Some were shot, but to save Mother Russia the cost of bullets many were beaten to death in the swampy waters of that marsh. Beating these emaciated people to a bloody pulp was sort of like the meat being prepared to make sausage. Those few who survived were then re-formed like good little sausage links in the image of their Soviet masters.
Thus was born Ukrainian Swamp Sausage, the living, and the dead kind. In August of 1941, the Germans invaded Ukraine. Many Ukrainians welcomed the Germans as liberators from the Soviets.
Unfortunately, the German SS under Heinrich Himmler had actually taken to heart the previous efforts of the Soviets. The Germans started to chase down the fleeing Ukrainians who, like their forefathers had done for many generations, ran to the Pripyat Marshes to try and escape and survive. German soldiers wanted to save their Fatherland the cost of bullets (how thoughtful) so they too would beat the Ukrainians to death in the swamps, a sort of German blood-sausage version of Ukrainian Swamp Sausage.
In most cases the Germans were not interested in re-forming the surviving Ukrainians into “new” sausage links. It was much easier to beat them to death and leave to bodies in the swamp.
The 22nd SS (Death-Head) Cavalry Regiment would drive the women and children into the swamp. When the water was not deep enough to drown them outright, more bloody beatings-more “swamp sausage”. You can find WWII film footage of German army artillery firing into the swamps and their air force dropping bombs onto the Pripyat swamp. Artillery and aerial bombs would be mechanized meat grinders for the sausage makers.
The systematic starvation of Ukraine by Stalin in 1932-33 was the cause of death for approximately four million Ukrainians. It was called the Holodomor, meaning man-made famine.
What you need to understand was the west quietly knew about the Holodomor but still allowed Soviet Russia to join the League of Nations, because it was all about trade. Stalin starved Ukraine so he could take the grain and sell it for hard currency. He then turned around and used the western money to buy western manufactured goods that he could not get made in glorious communist Russia because their quality of production was abysmal.
And yes, for the sake of money, the west, to include our then progressive president Roosevelt, looked the other way. The fact he had numerous communists within his inner circle [sound familiar] of advisers may have had some influence in this area.
Ukraine has suffered at the hands of the Russians and the Germans and it is going to happen again.
Putin will not give up Ukraine to the west. Also like the grain Stalin sold to the west for hard currency, Putin must sell his oil for today’s petrodollars, or in this case German petro Euros.
When Putin finally sends tanks into Ukraine and starts grinding up the locals into fresh new Ukrainian Swamp Sausage do you really think Western Europe is going to rise up and stop him in the name of humanity? Winter is still on in Europe and the easy living socialists do not want their central heating cut off, due to the lack of Russian oil and gas. What are a few less Ukrainians anyway, especially if it means the lights of Berlin and Paris stay on?
I am sure there is someone in Western Europe who owns a body-bag or casket business, which will prosper in this time of strife. Or I am sure some western company will be happy to sell a large shipment of bulldozers and backhoes to the Russians so they can dig the mass graves that will be needed.
In the US we really do not understand the strategic importance of Ukraine to the Russians but we will start to (maybe sort of) understand as the body count rises. Ukrainian Swamp Sausage production is sadly fixing to commence yet again.
Major Van Harl
USAF Ret
About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:
Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” vanharl@aol.com
