Ever had a brain cramp? You know, a time when you mean to say or write one word, but a wildly different one comes out, and you never notice until it’s way too late? And embarrassing?

That’s me, today.

Yesterday, I not only renamed the always-a-Pulitzer-contender National Enquirer, I moved it from New York City to Philadelphia, calling it the Philadelphia Enquirer.

For the record, The Philadelphia Inquirer is a daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia metro area, parts of New Jersey, Southern Pennsylvania and Delaware. It is the largest newspaper in the United States that operates as a public-benefit corporation and is owned by the non-profit Lenfest Institute. Founded on June 1, 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer is the third-longest continuously operating daily newspaper in the country. And, unlike the predaceous National Enquirer, The Philadelphia Inquirer has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes. It never has and never would pay hush money to anyone.

I apologize for this grievous error, and extend thanks to the legion of readers who caught it and were kind enough to tell me.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office. He didn’t get away with anything, yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.” —  Mitch McConnell, 13 February 2021, minutes after the Senate acquitted Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.

Yesterday, when pressed by Kristen Welker, of NBC News, Senator McConnell (R-KY) said he stands by those words, but added, “I don’t make the rules. I don’t sit on the Supreme Court.”

Welker interviewed Senator McConnell as the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments into whether former president Trump should be immune from prosecution for acts committed while he was President.

Trump’s lawyer, D. John Sauer, said the only time a President could be held criminally liable for those acts was following impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. Donald Trump was impeached, but not convicted. Therefore, he should have absolute immunity.

The three-hour Hearing was packed with “hypotheticals.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor borrowed a hypothetical from D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Florence Y. Pan and asked Sauer,  “Could a president order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” Sauer’s response? It would depend on whether the ordered assassination was deemed to be an “official act,” which led to a deep dive into the difference between official and personal acts.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the broad question of whether presidents have criminal immunity for their official actions, but it has held that presidents are absolutely immune from civil lawsuits related to their official acts (Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982)), in part to protect them against constant harassment and judicial scrutiny of their day-to-day decisions. The court has also held that presidents can be sued over their personal actions (Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997)).

Throughout the Hearing, covered by C-Span (audio, but no video), it became apparent the four Justices appointed by Democratic Presidents and the five appointed by Republicans were looking at this case through very different lenses. The Democratic appointees were interested in examining Trump’s claim for immunity. Presumably, that’s why they were all there. Republican appointees were interested in anything but that; they wanted to discuss what their decision would mean for history. Justice Neil Gorsuch called this a “decision for the ages,” and repeatedly said he did not want “to talk about this particular case,” because he was interested in what it would mean for imaginary presidents in the future. You know, the slippery slope argument.

But when they rule, the Justices will have to talk about this particular case.

Meanwhile, at the same moment the Justices were doing their best to count all the angels dancing on the head of a tiny pin, the man who had made the immunity claim was 231 miles to the north in a New York city courtroom listening to a former friend tell a jury about paying hush money to women with whom the immunity man had had sexual encounters.

David Pecker, the former friend and Philadelphia Enquirer publisher, testified at Trump’s trial in downtown Manhattan that the ex-president seemed unconcerned about how a story of his affair years earlier with Playboy model Karen McDougal would impact his family. Rather, it was all about how it would affect his campaign for president, which was why Pecker, instead of publishing a story about her time with Trump, agreed to pay the former girlfriend $150,000 to keep silent. And she did.

Then along came Stormy Daniels who wanted to sell a story about her very own Trump tryst to Pecker’s Philadelphia Enquirer. This time, Pecker balked at paying yet another woman for a bedroom story starring Donald Trump, so he told Trump’s “fixer,” Michael Cohen, Trump would have to make the payment himself, after which Pecker would kill the story. And that’s what happened. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000, and Trump reimbursed him. Then Trump and Cohen had to cover up the transaction with a pack of lies, which is what they did (nothing new there), and which is why candidate Donald Trump is currently off the campaign trail and forced to listen to people like David Pecker drag the one-time reality TV star’s disgusting baggage all over America.

The man who in the heat of the 2016 campaign boasted, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” is now betting that eight years later, nothing’s changed.

Personally, I would not take that bet.

“In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices.” — George Will

And so, it has happened. Speaker Mike Johnson, transforming what had been a spine of jello into one of firmer stuff, aligned himself with willing Democrats waving Ukrainian flags, and today cajoled the House of Representatives into passing a $95 billion Supplemental package of aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with $61 billion going to Ukraine. Eighty percent of the money for Ukraine will be spent in the U.S. with American workers in American manufacturing plants building the weapons and providing the ammunition Ukraine so dearly needs.

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation on Tuesday. President Biden has said he’ll sign it when it gets to his desk.

Ukraine has been in dire straights lately, principally because of its diminishing ammunition and weaponry. It has had to withdraw from positions it had retaken from the Russians, and it is now rationing ammunition. This is a recipe for disaster.

To get Ukraine what it needs immediately, the Pentagon will ship older weapons and ammo already in storage; the new armaments will replace those that will be heading to Ukraine next week. It’s a classic win/win. Ukraine, on its heels, gets what it needs immediately; the U.S. replenishes its aging armaments, an action that had been resisted mightily by many House Republicans.

The vote in the House was 311 to 112 in favor of the aid to Ukraine. The 112 who voted against the aid were all Republicans. One Republican, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, voted “present.”

Johnson, to his credit, is taking a huge political risk. Polling by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs shows 53% of Republicans continue to oppose further aid to Ukraine. But, overall, six in ten Americans favor providing both economic assistance to Ukraine and sending additional arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government (58% each).

And Johnson’s recent trip to Mar-a-Lago to get Donald Trump’s blessing for his push for the Ukrainian aid was key to his moving forward. At the end of their meeting, Trump said, “I’m with Speaker Johnson.” That still didn’t sway the 112 who voted against the aid today, but 101 did press the “Yea” button. All 210 democrats present today voted for the aid.

Mike Johnson’s troubles are not over. In fact, they may be just beginning. The lunatic fringe, led by Rome Georgia’s Marjory Taylor Greene, a clever firebrand with a mind as deep as my late grandmother’s sewing thimble, may activate the Motion to Vacate she’s already filed. She now has two Kentuckian co-conspirators, Thomas Massey and James Comer. It’s not exactly a movement yet, but who knows what tomorrow may bring.

Personally, I don’t think they will actually call for a vote to oust Johnson. Why? Because it’s likely to fail, and that would bring embarrassment they don’t want. Most Republicans do not seem eager for another Speaker battle of the ilk that got Johnson his job. They seem to be tired of all the shenanigans.

Plus, it is entirely conceivable that House Democrats would help Johnson keep his hanging-by-a-thread job. They now know they can work with him.

Today’s bottom line is this: Ukraine will now get the means to defend itself and even send the Russians, who seem to be hanging their hopes on a war of attrition, back from whence they came.

This would not have happened had not Mike Johnson recognized the status quo was unsustainable and decided he could no longer support it.

Morally and politically, that was the right thing to do.

As I write this, there are wars all over the world. Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Yemen to name a few. All are horrific and are ongoing for no good reason whatsoever, with untold death and destruction.

In the early 14th century, Dante Alighieri published his Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy. In the Inferno, Dante created the Circles of Hell. He created his Seventh Circle for warmongers who commit wanton brutality, like the ones who’ve started these current atrocities. The Seventh Circle is home to many.

War, with all its brutality and “collateral damage” is the most horrid man-made catastrophe in the history of humanity. And in every war, strange things happen, things which you could never believe possible. But they pop up and happen. I’m living proof.

This is a story in three parts, true in every particular, and it will show you what I mean.

So, sit back, and let me tell you a story.

Part One — The Night

It is Spring, 1970, and I am far north in South Vietnam, halfway between the city of Huế and the A Shau Valley, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The Valley is a feeder route from the Ho Chi Minh Trail, down which come thousands upon thousands of North Vietnamese Regulars determined to take back their country. Our job is to prevent that.

My team and I have just choppered in to Firebase Bastogne for what is supposed to be a few days off. We’ve been in the mountainous jungle for nearly a month and a half; we need a break.

Bastogne was built in 1968, used for a while, and then closed. In late 1969, seven months ago, the Army reopened it. When we get there, the 501st is expanding it.

The evening my team and I get there, three officer friends and I who haven’t seen each other in a while, commandeer an empty bunker and christen it the Firebase Bastogne Officers’ Club. It is small, perhaps 6 feet by 10 feet, and if you’re tall, standing up could be a problem. I have no problem.

Earlier, we had found a bucket and thrown as many beers in it as it would hold. It was warm beer, but we didn’t care.

The four of us were three Captains and one 1st Lieutenant, me, although I’d be promoted to Captain in a few months. Tom Higginbottom was the one with the wide smile; he was going home the next morning to what we called, “the world.” He’d been in Vietnam for nearly two years, two consecutive tours, which was unusual. After maybe his third beer, Tim Forest says to him, “What’s the second thing you’re going to do?” We all had an idea of what the first thing might be, which was one of the reasons for the man’s four-star smile. Danny French says, “I’d have a cigarette shortly after the first thing.”

Higginbottom reaches into his ammo can beside him and pulls out a picture. We all use ammo cans for the important personal stuff. If you get blown up, the ammo can might survive. Mine’s where I keep photos of my wife Marilyn and the baby girl I hope to get to know. Higginbottom shows us a picture of Chrissy, Mrs. Higginbottom, and we ooh and aah as we’re supposed to. And why not? The lady is gorgeous.

We spend another few minutes in the bunker, and then decide to turn in. So, we leave the bunker, walk up a little hill, turn to the right, and enter a pretty good-sized tent where cots have been set up for us, as well as for a few other Officers we don’t know. I don’t bother to check on my team. I know they want to be left on their own, just as I do.

It’s perhaps 2300 hours, that’s 11:00pm. Our mortar crew is firing out into the jungle on the off-chance some of our friends from the North might be there. All of us leave the tent to watch the show, when, suddenly, the ammo dump, which is below us, lights up like burning Rome. The mortar crew has fired a short round, which, instead of the jungle, has landed in the ammo dump and set the C-4 explosives on fire.

The fire is intense, and hot, and sits right beside all kinds of things that can go bang in the night.

Suddenly, into the ammo dump comes a huge bulldozer driven by one of the Army Engineers on Bastogne doing the expansion work.

The guy driving the bulldozer heads to the C-4. He’s going to put out the fire by smothering it. “Oh, Christ, don’t,” says Higginbottom, who’s standing beside me. Out of my mouth comes, “Oh, shit.” The four of us start screaming for him to stop, but he can’t hear us. He doesn’t know that C-4, on fire, will never explode, but if you smother the fire… And that is when the great big pile of fiery C-4 blows up in as loud an explosion as I ever heard. The bulldozer was pretty much on top of the C-4 when it blew, and now the bulldozer has been reduced to many pieces that are flying everywhere. We hit the ground instantly. Behind us, our tent suddenly resembles swiss cheese. If we’d been inside it, we’d all be dead, but not one of us has a scratch.

The ammo dump is soon crawling with soldiers trying to make things right, but this will never be right. We’re lucky nothing else, except the bulldozer, went up with the C-4.

We head down to the Command Post to see if there’s anything we can do, but there really isn’t. The bulldozer’s driver, a hero in the making, has been vaporized. We never find him. We later discover his name was Cameron Smith, Staff Sergeant Cameron Smith, whose name will eventually wind up on the Vietnam Wall at the end of the Mall in D.C.

We walk back up the hill, and, as we’re standing there, the strangest thing in a night of strange things occurs. Around a corner to our left, at the base of our hill, come two soldiers carrying a stretcher, on which a body lies under a white sheet. They pass beneath us. Tim Forest says, “Who is that and where did he come from?”

It isn’t until the next morning that we learn the soldier’s name is PFC Samuel Lavezolli, another name for the future Wall. He had been sleeping on the open ground far on the other side of the firebase when a chunk of the bulldozer, its flywheel, which had “flown” all the way from the ammo dump, landed on him, killing him instantly.

We four officers look at each other, realizing the explosion should have killed us all, but didn’t. We were untouched. However, PFC Lavezolli, a few hundred yards away, dies instantly, without ever knowing a thing about it.

We separate to check on our men, and then turn in for the night. It takes me a long time to get to sleep.

Part Two — The next morning

Early the next morning, we roll out of our cots, which had somehow mostly survived the prior night’s explosion. “Mostly,” because two of them now had a few new holes, but they worked.

The four of us stroll down to the rudimentary mess hall and head to the coffee. One thing the army is good at is mess hall coffee, and this stuff is much better than the instant crap the army sends us when we’re in the field.

We grab some scrambled eggs and well done bacon, find some stools to sit on, and eat. We, all four of us, are reticent this morning, what with the two strange deaths the night before. Tim Forest says, “How are we not dead?” Tom Higginbottom tells him, “Don’t think about it. There’s no way to explain it. We’re alive, and a couple of guys aren’t. I’ve seen it before. It’s what war does.”

I say to Higginbottom, “That’s fine for you to say. You’re out of here in about two hours. We’re not. We should hoist a few more for you before you shove out.” Higginbottom smiles the big smile again.

But we don’t hoist anything. Instead, we split up to check on our men.

After I do that, I head to the CP to see if there’s any radio traffic about last night we might have intercepted. But there isn’t.

So I decide to hang around for a bit, and then just see what the day brings.

I spend a few minutes with my friend John Crosby, a Major who’s Battalion Surgeon. Suddenly, there are explosions outside, two of them. Bang and then bang. We all duck, waiting for the next one. You always duck immediately after the thing that was meant to kill you misses and goes whizzing by. But there isn’t a next one. What there is is Tim Forest running into the CP wearing his steel pot helmet and looking awful.

“It got Higginbottom,” he says. “No hope. He’s dead.” All I can say is, “What the…?” He says, “He was walking down the street. Landed right beside him.”

Our Battalion Commander is with us, listening. Instantly, he takes charge and tells Forest to get back out there to see if anyone knows where the mortars came from. As Tim turns to leave, LTC Carter¹, says, “Get our mortars firing right away.” With that. Tim is gone.

Colonel Carter, callsign Bulldog, now turns to me and says, “Get your men and go find those guys. Now.” With one, “Yes, sir,” I’m out the door. Crosby is right behind me trying to find out who needs medical help and how much.

I run to where I know my guys will be. There are eight of them. I give our orders to Staff SGT Lucey, a firefighter when he’s home in California, and say, “We need to get our gear and head out ASAP.” Lucey takes charge of that, and we agree to meet back here in five minutes.

I run to where Tim Forest is talking to the guy in charge of artillery and mortars. There’s a lot of artillery on Bastogne, 105s, 155s, 175s, and more, but all we need now are the mortars. They agree the mortars that got Higginbottom came from about 170 degrees south. The artillery guy agrees to put some mortar rounds out beyond where we’re going to give us some cover. That’s all I need. I run back to meet Lucey and the men, and we head out.

Part three — The mortar that wasn’t

As we leave Bastogne I know we’re probably looking for only a couple of guys, one to hold the mortar, the other to load it. We’ve seen this kind of thing before. But that makes them nimble and quick.

PFC Sammy Gullett walks point for us. He had a huge chip on his shoulder when he came to us. Since then, he’s  lost the chip and has become a fine soldier, who will be killed walking point seven months later, when a new Lieutenant leads him and his platoon straight into an ambush that should never have happened.

Sergeant Ben Criegesberg, a Pennsylvania farmer, follows Gullett. Then comes Lucey, followed by me and the other guys. Criegesberg will be wounded and lose the use of his left arm in the ambush that kills Sammy.

We move carefully, but at a rapid pace. Tom Higginbottom is dead. He’ll still be going home today, but not in the manner any of us ever imagined for him. So, I make up my mind to do the very best we can for him by trying to find the guys who killed him. However, Lucey and I both know those guys are long gone. They will have unassed the area about ten seconds after firing their rounds. But still, we try.

Up far ahead, our guys are landing 81 mm mortar rounds. That should eliminate the possibility of a surprise we don’t need, like an ambush.

It is at that moment, when we’ve gone about 700 meters from Bastogne and are passing through a small clearing, that we hear the impossible to mistake swishing sound of “incoming.” Then there’s a deep thud. Frozen in time, we look to our right, and about 20 feet away we see an 81 mm mortar round sticking up out of the ground. Unexploded, it just sits there.

Lucey looks at me and says, “Ah, Lieutenant, don’t you think…?” “Yeah,” I say, and we all slowly and carefully move away.

I immediately get on the radio to the artillery guy to tell him what happened. I also tell him to stop firing before he kills us all.

In the end, we set a charge and blow the mortar in place. I call Bulldog to ask if we should continue the search. But he also knew the bad guys had boogied right after they fired, so, because so much time has gone by, he tells us to come back in. Which we did.

That night, Forest, French and I once again find ourselves in the brand new Firebase Bastogne Officers’ Club. We toast Tom Higginbottom and PFC Lavezolli, and Sergeant Smith, and then just sit there.

Then, we leave the Club, walk up the hill, turn to the right, and enter our swiss cheese tent to be with our own thoughts about the day and night before.

I don’t know what the others are thinking, but I cannot get out of my mind the lunacy of what we’ve all just gone through. Three men died. Three good people. Not one of them knew it was coming. All three of them felt relatively safe just before it happened.

Why had I been saved? The mortar that landed just feet away should have killed me and at least some of my men. But it didn’t. Why not?

There is no answer, and in all the years that follow there never will be.

Epilogue

Years later, I will visit the Wall and find the names Thomas Higginbottom, Cameron Smith, Samuel Lavezolli, Samuel Gullet, and a few more I had known. It still made no sense to me that I was standing there, and they weren’t. In addition to the mortar that wasn’t, I had been shot down in a Light Observational Helicopter—twice—and never suffered a scratch out of either.

Sherman said, “War is hell,” and it is. But war can also be stranger than strange.

Mine was.

_________________________

¹ LTC Carter, call sign “Bulldog,” is one about whom I have written before. Eight months after these events, he and I, along with my partner Buck Kernan, will mark the end of my time in Vietnam with a nightly observance, spanning 60 days, in which we will light a ceremonial candle, mark a big red X on a Playboy pinup’s body, and eat one Macadamia nut. The X will grow more lascivious as the days pass.

Today is the 15th of April, and a lot is happening from sea to shining sea.

Here in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts, the sun is bright, and all’s right with the world. Except perhaps for you procrastinators who haven’t finished your taxes as the seconds tiptoe by with their index fingers wagging.

In other news, events are unfolding in New York City where a certain former President is…well, we don’t have to mention that today, because today is also the celebration of the anniversary of “the shot heard round the world,” an event of infinitely more importance than anything even remotely connected to he who shall not be named.

On a date four days from now in 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with battles in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Those two battles were the scene of the first American revolutionary casualties: 49 died, 39 were wounded, and five went missing. Consequently, we celebrate Patriots Day, a Massachusetts state holiday. It’s also a holiday in five other states: Connecticut, Florida, Maine, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Personally, I think the other 44 should join the party.

In Massachusetts, from 1897 until 1968, Patriots Day was celebrated on the actual date of the first battles, 19 April. Since then, it’s been observed on the 3rd Monday of April. The Town of Lexington holds a full-fledged reenactment first thing in the morning every Patriots Day. This morning was no different.

And, since 1897, Patriots Day has been the day runners from around the world compete in the Boston Marathon.

Marathon History

The first celebration of the modern Olympic Games took place in its ancient birthplace — Greece. The Games attracted athletes from 14 nations, with the largest delegations coming from Greece, Germany, France and Great Britain. America sent 14 competitors.

On 6 April 1896, the American James Connolly won the inaugural event, the triple jump, to become the first Olympic champion in more than 1,500 years. He also finished second in the high jump and third in the long jump.

Due to its historical significance, the Greek hosts wanted to win the marathon above all else. Spyridon Louis set off from the city of Marathon and took the lead four kilometers from the finish line and, to the joy of 100,000 spectators, won the race by more than seven minutes.

After the success of the Olympiad of 1896, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) decided to host a marathon competition in Boston the following year, 1897. And that was when the Boston Marathon was born, the first annual marathon in the world. John J. McDermott of New York, emerged from a 15-member starting field and won that first B.A.A. Marathon in 2 hours, 55 minutes, 10 seconds. With that win, McDermott secured his name in sports history.

That first Boston Marathon was 24.5 miles. In 1924, the course was lengthened to 26 miles, 385 yards to conform to the Olympic standard, and that’s the way it’s been ever since.

This morning, more than 30,000 runners took off from the Town of Hopkinton, all setting their sights on completing the ordeal and finishing on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. Some will be arriving well into the evening. Five groups competed at staggered starting times: Men’s and women’s wheelchair; Elite men and women runners; and everyone else who qualified (plus a few who didn’t, but jumped in to run it, anyway).

This morning, a record fell when Marcel Hug, of Switzerland, won the Men’s Wheelchair race in 1 hour, 15 minutes, 33 seconds. That’s less than three minutes per mile—up and down hills. One of the hills, 21 miles into the race, is aptly named “Heartbreak Hill.” It’s broken many a leader. It was the 7th Boston win for Hug. His record is even more impressive an achievement when one considers that in the middle of the race he crashed into a stone wall, tipped over, yet managed to somehow get his wheelchair upright again and continue on.

Great Britain’s Eden Rainbow Cooper won the women’s wheelchair division in her first Boston marathon. She did everything on her own with no sponsors or team to prepare her. Rainbow will likely have sponsors by tonight.

Sisay Lemma, of Ethiopia, set a blistering pace for the elite men and held on to win in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 17 seconds — the 10th fastest time in the race’s 128-year history.

Hellen Obiri  outsprinted fellow Kenyan Sharon Lokedi down Boylston Street to win by eight seconds. Obiri is the first woman to win back-to-back Boston marathons since 2005. She finished in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 37 seconds.

The passion and dedication of world class athletes is awesome to see. The sacrifices made to reach for perfection, and occasionally hold it in the palm of one’s hand, should inspire us all.

And on this Patriot’s Day, we should also remember with pride and gratitude the sacrifices made by America’s Founding Fathers, our original Patriots, each of whom knew if Great Britain won the war he’d be wearing a hangman’s noose.

This is why, rather than write anything today the first trial of Donald Trump, I choose to salute Hug and Cooper and Lemma and Obiri and the tens of thousands who ran after them, as well as the those in 1775 who, risking life and limb, stood up to the mightiest army in the world for the fundamental truths a Virginian would espouse the following year in what became our Declaration of Independence.

Bravo to all, then and now.

“They are now being outshot by the Russian side five to one. So the Russians fire five times as many artillery shells at the Ukrainians than the Ukrainians are able to fire back. That will immediately go to 10 to one in a matter of weeks. We’re not talking about months. We’re not talking hypothetically.”
Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command

On Wednesday, General Cavoli and Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, testifying before the House Committee on Armed Services, urged lawmakers to approve the $95 billion supplemental defense bill passed by the Senate two months ago, but languishing since then in the House. The bill would provide $60 billion in funding for Ukraine armaments with the rest targeted for aid to Taiwan and Israel.

General Cavoli emphasized the need for 155mm artillery shells, saying, “The biggest killer on the battlefield is artillery. In most conflicts, but in this one definitely. And should Ukraine run out, they would run out because we stopped supplying — because we supply the lion’s share of that.”

Later in the day, U.S. Army leaders echoed the warnings to the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. “The side that can’t shoot back, loses, and at this point Ukraine is really starting to be pressed to be able to shoot back. So I am very concerned,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. “We saw Ukraine lose some territory a couple of months ago. And I think there is a real danger…that the Russians could have a breakthrough somewhere in the line.”

Air defense capacity is particularly urgent. To illustrate that point, consider that yesterday Russia fired 82 missiles and drones into the Kyiv region, a huge attack. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 57 of them, leaving 25 that got through, including six hypersonic Kinzhal missiles.

The attack totally destroyed the Trypilska Thermal Power Plant (TPP), the largest supplier of electricity to Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions, according to the plant’s owner, the energy company Centrenergo. The company has now lost 100% of its power generation across its three plants, which have all been destroyed or occupied by Russia.

Over more than two years of war, Russia has systematically targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in an attempt to break the country’s power grid and, with it, the Ukrainian people’s spirit, by depriving them of electricity, heat, water and other essential services. I find it beyond inspirational that the morale of Ukraine’s citizens remains high. They remember what it was like being a Soviet Republic prior to 1992. They remember democracy and true independence taking root with the Orange Revolution of 2004. They remember and refuse to go back to subservience.

Following yesterday’s attack, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy accused the West of “turning a blind eye” to the air defense needs of his country.

The man certainly has a point. The House continues to seem willing to let Russia, with aid from Iran and North Korea, get nearer and nearer to breaking through Ukrainian defensive lines. And Speaker Johnson appears much more interested in keeping his job by kowtowing to the far right elements in the House. And then there’s Donald Trump to please.  Today, the Speaker was in Mar-a-Lago genuflecting and kissing the ring, a true love story in the making.

Meanwhile, an unescapable fact remains — Ukraine cannot win if it can’t shoot back.

“If the Congress doesn’t help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 8 April 2024

That’s about as stark a statement as you’ll see. And he means it. Ukraine faces no bigger disaster than losing its war with Russia, a war it did not start. Russia invaded this sovereign, independent democracy in February, 2022, because its egomaniacal dictator hungered to resurrect Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, and capturing Ukraine was the first step in his plan.

Tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians have died. And with the continued help of Iran and North Korea, Russian forces are now better armed than Ukraine’s troops, especially with respect to artillery shells. Everything Ukraine needs to repel the invaders is in short supply, and its soldiers are bone-tired. Russia’s success in taking the city of Avdiivka in February, along with its territorial gains since, have caused many to reassess the potential for Ukraine to prevail in this hellish war.

Of course, that reassessment might not be as dark as it appears to be if the U.S. House of Representatives would provide the $60 billion in Ukraine aid it has bottled up for two months. This failure to act is even more perplexing when one realizes most of the needed funds would be spent in the U.S., because American workers at American companies would be making the weapons so desperately needed.

None of this seems to matter to a few rabidly ambitious and self-centered members of the House who, on Donald Trump’s orders, have prevented a vote on the bill passed by the Senate in February. And Speaker Mike Johnson, a seemingly mild-mannered, deeply Christian, but very sly, backbencher, who woke up one day to find himself in the third highest position in government, is now trying to walk down the edge of a political razor blade while searching for some way to advance Ukraine funding without losing his new cushy job. He is not emerging as a “profile in courage.”

Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, it’s seat-squirming time, as losses mount despite the heroic  efforts of so many to save their land. As Ben Barry, Senior Fellow for Land Warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) puts it:

The IISS assesses that Russia can sustain its campaign for some time. Moscow has been able to bring on enough contract soldiers to sustain its force structure and should be able to replenish tank losses on the battlefield for two or more years. It also has put its economy in a war setting, with total military spending now representing one-third of its national budget and reaching about 7.5% of GDP. Supply of artillery ammunition, loitering munitions and ballistic missiles from Iran and North Korea also shifts the balance of firepower against Ukraine. That means that over the coming year Russia will probably be able to generate sufficient missiles and drones to maintain its recent level of pressure on Ukraine’s air defences, attack its defence industry and attempt to erode Ukrainian civilian and military moral.

Without American aid what this means is that, at best, Ukraine will be in a defensive posture for some time; at worst, it will need to withdraw and cede valuable territory to the aggressor. The dilemma for Ukraine’s army becomes choosing between a forward-defense posture to keep Russian forces from cities and towns at the cost of higher casualties, or pulling back to conserve troops. To prove that last point, President Zelenskyy said at the Munich Security Conference last month that the Avdiivka withdrawal was aimed at “preserving soldiers’ lives.”

And if that’s not enough, into this latest mess parachutes Donald Trump.

Last Sunday, Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post reported that Trump has privately said that after winning the upcoming election he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Trump’s proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity. This plan may or may not be true, because in what passes for Donald Trump’s mind, pigs really can fly.

You will recall Mr. Trump and President Zelenskyy, three months into his new job, had an interesting phone call on 25 July 2019, during which Trump pressured Zelenskyy to open investigations that could damage former Vice President Joe Biden heading into the 2020 election. At that time, long before the current conflagration, all the former comedian and newly-elected Ukrainian president could do was smile.

A lot of flotsam has floated down the political river since then, but it seems to me if President Zelenskyy, who has grown to become Ukraine’s George Washington, was ever asked to respond to Trump’s brilliant diplomatic proposal, he might do so with no smile and two, well-chosen words, which Mr. Trump would have no trouble understanding.

“War is hell.” — Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, in a speech to graduates of the Michigan Military Academy in 1879.

Sherman was right, and at this moment his three-word phrase is ringing true, especially in Ukraine and Gaza. Inhumanity is on full display.

When wars end, somebody has to pick up the pieces — in more ways than one. First, there is the massive rebuilding that will confront the survivors whenever the bullets and bombs stop flying. I’ve written about what Ukrainians face when that longed-for day comes. Palestinians will require the same kind of herculean effort in Gaza when that horror stops, if it ever does.

Second, and not as well recognized, is the peril of unexploded ordinance and landmines that survive the battle to lie in wait for some poor innocent to take the wrong step into the hereafter.

More than 700 million artillery and mortar rounds were fired on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, of which an estimated 15 percent failed to explode. Every year these leftover shells kill people — 36 in 1991 alone, for instance, when France excavated the track bed for a new high-speed rail line. Dotted throughout the region are patches of uncleared forest or scrub surrounded by yellow danger signs in French and English warning hikers away. The French government employs teams of démineurs, roving bomb-disposal specialists, who respond to calls when villagers discover shells; they collect and destroy 900 tons of unexploded munitions each year. More than 630 French démineurs have died in the line of duty since 1946.¹

When those 36 French people Adam Hochschild cited in his masterful history, To End All Wars, died in 1991 laying a track bed for a rail line, World War I had been over for 73 years.

Many of the First World War’s live explosives dotting the French landscape lie in the Zone Rouge, the Red Zone encompassing much of the territory of the Battle of the Somme, which took place from 1 July to 18 November 1916. This was one of the bloodiest battles in history, with over a million casualties. On the first day, alone, Britain saw 57,470 of its soldiers killed — you read that right, 57,470 soldiers killed — in one day. During the entire battle, the British and Germans fired more than 37 million artillery shells, 1.7 million in the first week.

At the end of the nearly five-month Battle of the Somme, the British had managed to gain a grand total of six miles of territory. It might not seem like much, but the losses Germany incurred forced its troops to retreat to the Hindenburg line in early 1917.

Today, a potentially worse problem than unexploded shells faces Ukrainians, because not only do they have that problem, they also face the nearly impossible task of finding and neutralizing more than a million anti-personnel land mines Russia laid in Eastern Ukraine before its troops pulled out in 2023. These land mines are killing and maiming people every day.

Anti-personnel landmines are prohibited under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (or Mine Ban Convention), adopted in 1997. More than 150 countries have joined this treaty. Russia is not one of them. Neither is Israel. Or Iran. Or China.

Nearly 1,000 civilians in Ukraine have been killed by mines since the war began, according to aid groups. Most of those civilian casualties were caused by anti-vehicle mines planted in areas Ukrainians were trying to return to in order to revive their farms. But a bigger problem now is the anti-personnel variety, the ones that are strewn over field after field. The ones people step on. Most Ukrainians who step on mines and survive face foot and leg amputations. Clearing these is heroic work.

Last night, Scott Pelley, of CBS’s 60 Minutes, reported on the anti-personnel land mine horror facing Ukraine now. It was compelling, even hard to watch, because it showed what land mines are doing to innocent civilian Ukrainians whose only crime appears to be being Ukrainian. Like the French, who continue to be bedeviled by bombs from 73 years ago, Ukrainians will be dying from these Russian gifts for generations.

The anti-personnel land mines are an obvious war crime. That’s easy for me to say. What do you think? Why not watch Pelley’s award-worthy (and dangerous) reporting and decide for yourself?

Now what do you think?

______________

¹Hochschild, Adam, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

Yesterday, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan rejected Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 hush money criminal trial until the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity claims he raised. Consequently, the wheels of justice continue to grind slowly, but exceedingly fine, and the trial will begin in eleven days.

And what of Trump’s claims of immunity? Writing in The Conversation this morning, Professor Wayne Unger, who teaches constitutional law at Quinnipiac University, said, “If a student of mine had submitted a brief making the arguments that Trump and his lawyers assert in their Supreme Court filing, I would have given them an F.”

Professor Unger writes that, in an attempt to cozy up to Supreme Court Justices, especially the ones he nominated, the Trump Brief cites a 2009 law review article by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and claims it showed Kavanaugh supported his position. Kavanaugh wrote, “[A] President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President,” and Trump relies on that sentence as evidence of support for the position that a president requires absolute immunity.

But according to Unger, the article concludes the exact opposite. According to Unger:

But even a cursory reading of Kavanaugh’s article reveals that Kavanaugh argued only for a deferral of a criminal prosecution until after a president leaves office.

As Kavanaugh states, “The point is not to put the President above the law or to eliminate checks on the President, but simply to defer litigation and investigations until the President is out of office.”

And that is exactly what is happening right now with Trump out of office.

It would be interesting to know Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion of Trump’s lawyers trying to mislead the Court by referencing a law review article of his.

The legal maneuvering of Donald Trump, the born-on-third-base, but-everyone-knows-I-hit-a-triple man, made me think of something that happened on this date 151 years ago in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For that was the day in 1871 that 33-year-old Carrie Burnham, a woman with more legal acuity in her little finger than all of Donald Trump’s high-priced lawyers put together, finished her masterful two-day, 90-page argument before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court advocating that election officials in Philadelphia’s Ward 14 had illegally refused to accept her ballot.

A lower court had first ruled against her suit by claiming the Pennsylvania Constitution only allowed “freemen” the right to vote. This was its entire and only position. The court had written:

Carrie Burnham’s entire case rested on the meaning of the word, freeman. 

In 90 pages of legal erudition, rarely, if ever, seen in that, or any other court, she eviscerated the lower court’s position, beginning with the Teutonic origin of the word—frei mann. Citing Greek and Roman history, the Magna Carta, a wealth of English Common Law, the U.S. Constitution (particularly the 14th Amendment), as well as the Constitutions and court cases of various American states (particularly New Jersey, where women had the right to vote from 1790 until 1807), Burnham conclusively proved the word freeman was always intended to be generic, referring to both genders.

Well, as you’d expect, the lady lost her case. Although, two of the court’s judges asked her for copies of her brief, and one sent it along to Harvard Law School, where it continues to be taught to this day.

But Carrie Burnham was much more than is told in this story.

She wasn’t even a lawyer when she appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. She was able to do that, because the state had a law that allowed supplicants to plead their own cases.

She studied law privately, because no law school would admit her. When she requested taking the bar exam in 1873 and 1874, she was denied. After a decade of lobbying, however, she became the first woman admitted to Penn’s law school, in 1881. After graduating, Carrie Burnham was the first female lawyer in the city of Philadelphia, and first woman admitted to the Bar in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Today, a residence hall at Penn is named for her.

Extraordinarily, at a time when few women worked outside the home, she managed to become not only a lawyer, but, after an extended legal battle, also a medical doctor, making her an early and dynamic leader in the struggle for women’s rights in America.

She got her medical degree from New York’s Bellevue Hospital, one of only 30 women in a class of 500.

The women faced harassment from the men, including at least one professor who “repeatedly exposed” patients, both male and female, in front of the women, in hopes of shocking them into quitting the program. After these classes, the male students would line the hallways, forcing the women to walk an intimidating gauntlet to leave the building. But, she wrote, “[W]e continued our studies without noticing apparently any of the insults heaped upon us.”

She earned her degree of Doctor of Medicine and worked as an assistant physician at a medical institute in Boston. There she helped a male doctor prepare a book on physiology, but received no credit when it was published.

She continued to practice law for 21 years after her admittance to the Bar, and died in 1909.

Her 1871 argument in support of her right to vote apparently alarmed some men, because the next year, a state convention amended Pennsylvania’s constitution to say that only “every white male citizen” could vote.

That is praise, indeed.