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| A Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum taking off |
I know it's old news by now, but I can't help but post about it. The "Ghost of Kyiv" is a solitary MiG-29 pilot, who on the night of the Russian invasion of Ukraine managed to be come the first ace in day in the last 57 years.
Aided by his ground controllers to identify and intercept his targets, he had come back to base multiple times to rearm and refuel, continuing his mission all day. By the end of the day, he had reportedly downed six Russian aircraft in total. His kills consisted of 2 SU-35 Super Flankers, 1 SU-27 Flanker, 1 MiG 29 Fulcrum, and 2 SU-25 Frogfoots, which earned him the moniker “Ghost of Kiev” by Russian pilots.
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| The Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft |
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| A Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter. The Su-35 is an advanced variant that looks almost identical. |
Initially this was considered propaganda and spin and this idea was obviously promoted by Russian propaganda. However, earlier the Ukrainian president confirmed the name of the pilot to be Vladimir Andonov and posted a picture to twitter.
As cool as all of this is, the real benefit for us in America is all the memes:
They are tough. Just saw this on SNAFU Solomon's blog:
According to a recording obtained by Ukraine World and shared to Twitter, an unidentified Ukrainian woman reportedly confronted Russian troops, asked why they were there, and suggested they place sunflower seeds in their pockets so that flowers may bloom where they fall on the soil of her country.
I'm pretty picky when it comes to tales of the paranormal, partially because I am very skeptic of not very well documented things, but also because there's a lot of people who love to hoax the stuff. I'm also lumping in UFO stories in this category as well. Anyway, here's a short list of some I find more than a bit interesting. Just don't forget to put on the music before reading!
Operation Washtub, also called STAGE, (not to be confused with the Operation Washtub in Nicaragua) makes for some interesting reading. Declassified (or released) sometime around 2014, it was a detailed, joint program between the USAF and the FBI to train and keep intelligence agents in Alaska to maintain a network of informants, rescue, and saboteur agents in the event of a Soviet invasion and/or occupation of Alaska.
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| Picture from Wikipedia showing the Air Force notes on the chain of command for the operation. |
The program specifically requested agents chosen for the operation needed to be locals, be mobile, not be obvious targets for Russian invaders, and not be military personnel. The released documents specifically mention that fishermen and bush pilots would likely be the best candidates. The agents were then all trained separately to avoid any other agent's identity being compromised in the event one is captured. $3,000 (nearly $29,000 in today's money) of yearly pay was given to all agents, with it promised to double in the event of an actual invasion/activation. In total, at the height of the program, there were 89 agents in the program, with the median age among them being 50.
It's also funny to note that several people covering this info in news outlets or other mediums have accused both the USAF and FBI of racism because Eskimo and Aleut peoples were avoided in agent selections because the document states "their prime concern is with survival and their allegiance would easily shift to any power in control.” Which I think is a broadly accurate assessment, but just funny to see people get bent out of shape about it.
By far the most fascinating part of the mission to me, is that most of the equipment issued wasn't directly given to the agents themselves, but were stored in predetermined caches spread across the Alaskan wilderness. They included a 30-06 rifle with optic (I assume a Springfield), suppressed small caliber pistol (likely a .22), 150 feet of climbing rope with crampons and petons, snow shoes, commercial skis, explosives (likely Comp B), along with $500 in gold or silver. From what I gather, the caches are still out there and according to an official military historian of the OSI, they were converted to "survival caches", but I don't see how that would really change the contents.
Here's a link to the FOIA released documents from the FBI on it (some of it still redacted). They detail far more than what is in the Wikipedia article and list the types of equipment/supplies, both issued and cached, how communications would be conducted, how resupplies would occur, and much more.
In the end, the program was officially cancelled due to budget concerns over maintaining the agents peacetime pay, as well as concerns over maintaining the caches.
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| The FOIA request also contains letters of recommendation for specific agents such as this, but with names redacted. |
So, just the other day, the big news locally was that there were two Utah Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawks that crashed near the Snowbird ski resort. Thankfully, the news has reported that there were no injuries, but knowing the news, hopefully that continues to stay accurate.
Because it happened near a popular ski resort, it seems there is plenty of footage of the incident. From what I see, one pilot may have not selected an even spot to land, but was unable to see that because of the white out conditions as they approached, creating conditions, that led one of the craft to strike the other.
However, all that aside, training the mountainous regions of the Unitas is not too unusual for the UNG, but it's interesting to note how dangerous that can be, as this is far from the first time that conditions there have caused Blackhaws to crash there. I'm sure there's even more if you include all the civilian helicopter crashes as well.
Here's the recent one:
https://www.ksl.com/article/50353784/no-injuries-after-2-blackhawk-helicopters-go-down-near-snowbird-
As a random thought to go with this, despite being made by the lowest bidder, the UH-60 is fairly resilient as far as helicopters go. It's surprising that with how often helicopters crash, the UH-60 seems to have a better than usual track record of it resulting in either minor or no injuries.
Was just messing around on google maps and stumbled upon a little place inside the UTTR called Oasis Inn. Sitting in the middle of a large junkyard/target depot, it's pretty obvious that the place is there to support people visiting the place for short periods for various reasons. What isn't too obvious is if this place is operated by the Fed, State, or DoD, or is contracted out?
Finding any info about it is frustrating, as there doesn't seem to be much out there about it other than a disappointing one star google review. There is another place in Green River that is named the same that I initially confused it with, but there really isn't much to go on. Then again, that's probably because there isn't much to know.
However, I would love to know if it's access is restricted and if the place is civilian operated. Just kinda interesting to think about.
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| A google maps satellite shot of the site. Obviously there's no street view. |
I've said here before that I don't really want to comment too often on current events, but I just have to say, if the Canadians had a second amendment, it's getting pretty darn close to the point they need to use it, if it's not already here. One of my favorite bloggers, Kim Du Toit often uses this pic to illustrate what tyrannical governments deserve:
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Another great game from my childhood that still holds up really well is No One Lives Forever and it's sequel A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way. Part stealth game, part screwball comedy, part action game, and all of it dripping with swinging '60s style and is pure innocent fun. I don't know of any other wise-cracking female spy that can take people out with a banana peel, a robot kitten bomb, and lipstick grenades; all while handling all sorts of classic guns.
The games themselves are great, but recently it's made headlines with the confusing (and still unsolved) legal status of the licensing rights to the game. Long story short, the original studio was bought out, merged, then assets sold off in such a confusing manner, that no company involved really knows who owns the rights to it anymore. The consequence being you cannot buy a copy of it anymore unless you happen to find the disks in a thrift store.
On the bright side, this means you can actually pick up the games for free over at the fan revival site nolfrevival.tk. Some of them may require a little finesse to get running, but once again, free is free, and these games are classics that were way ahead of their time.
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| I would say it's worth every penny, but hey, you don't even have to give up a single one! |
So, again we come to this week's Unsolved Mysteries, the subject today being Cryptids. Generally not my favorite topic, so it likely will not reoccur, but these were some of the best I could find on it. So, put on the awesome version of the theme song again and give 'em a read.
It's not often that I find something surprising that I had no idea about when it comes to local history, so color me surprised when I found this little nugget from NPR and another local blogger. I had no idea that Amelia Earhart had to make a forced landing after experiencing engine troubles when following the rail lines near Tintic, Utah in 1928.
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| One picture of an article you can find on Amelia's stay at Jacob Barlow's site. He has many more pics there of additional articles detailing her stay while her plane was being repaired. |
I won't steal the thunder, but you can read a transcript of the radio broadcast of the story on NPR's website here. Another big thanks goes out to Jacob Barlow's site which introduced the subject to me and he has some really neat pictures of the original newspaper articles about it there. I would highly encourage you to check out his site as it has all sorts of cool info about old towns, ghost towns, filming locations, and lots of other assorted and interesting info about Utah.
I'm not a fan of reality TV shows, even when they were all the rage a few years ago. The only one that I could occasionally stand was MTV's Pimp My Ride, as it was a bit silly and over the top. I mean, there's a reason it spawned memes still in use today, but as it turns out, Hollywood is still a cesspool of nastyness, and the show was a train wreck behind the scenes. The ever-excellent youtube channel Weird History does a short dive into some of the controversies:
I always loved that title of the little section of Popular Mechanics magazine back in the day. They always loved highlighting things people thought was new, but was a decades old idea, but likely was only made practical by modern innovation.
Anyways, as I have said before, I have next to no interest in purchasing/owning most bullpup guns (if not all). However, I still find them very fun and interesting from an engineering perspective. The one that caught my eye lately was a prototype bullpup rifle featured on the firearm blog made by a company called Senex Arms.
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| Pic of the prototype obviously swiped form TFB. |
The firearm blog says it's meant to be as compatible with as many AR-15 parts as possible, and mentions it uses a slightly modified AR bolt carrier group. From the looks of it, it seems it would also use the same fire control group, magazine, and barrel. However, they do say it will feature an HK-type non-reciprocating charging handle, and will have a quick change barrel as well. It's seems like an actual good idea for people that basically want a bullpup AR with parts compatibility with the AR.
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| Hopefully, it doesn't turn out to be like the Bushmaster M17S. |
However, the whole thing reminds me of another decades old project that turned into the ill fated Bushmaster M17S. The concept was similar, make a bullpup AR18 action, but use as many AR15 parts as possible like mags, mag release, grips (on later models), pins, and springs. The whole thing just didn't pan out due to weird ergonomics, poor controls, heavier weight, and somehow it's not as accurate or reliable. The production run was small, and is not made anymore because most people just didn't like it. The Senex guys seem to have a much better, well thought out concept, so hopefully the same fate doesn't befall them.
As an aside, I found while making this post, that the M17S has been re-engineered/improved by K&M Arms to fix many of the long-standing issues of the platform, and is now back in production. Here's a picture of the modernized rifle from K&M Arms' website:
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| The squadron emblem |
Many people wanted to know what those lights were in the Nevada skies in the 70s through the 90s. People theorized that it was flying saucers, experimental spacecraft, or UFOs of alien origin, but now we have a good idea of what most of them may have been after Constant Peg (and the F-117) was declassified.
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| A picture of the US crews in front of a MiG-21 from the 4477th. Sourced from Wikipedia. |
What is Constant Peg, you ask? Well, it was the name of the longest continuing classified military airplane program done by the United States. Nestled in a remote locale in Nevada, is the Tonopah Test Range, with it's accompanying airfield which was home to the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, which was a joint-service effort with pilots/aviators from the Navy, USMC, and Air Force, that was also sometimes supported by the infamous Groom Lake facility. This unit was given the classified assignment described as "the testing and evaluation of foreign aircraft technology" from the years of 1977 to 1990.
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| A Constant Peg MiG-23 flying over the Nevada desert. |
Basically, the military had been able to acquire a relatively large amount of MiG-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-27s, Chinese copies of these planes, and others through various means, such as: political dealings, espionage, straw purchases, defections, captured, recovered from crashes, and even stolen examples. Ultimately, the Air Force (and other services) were eager to form a squadron to evaluate them and put them to use against American aircraft and pilots in wargames. Both to assess their performance and capabilities of the expected adversary aircraft, as well as understand the workings of the aircraft to better prepare US pilots against them in the event of a future war, and current proxy conflicts.
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| Another MiG-23 of the squadron. |
The pilots selected for this mission were to be the absolute best of their fields, and would train relentlessly, as they not only had to fly missions as test pilots to evaluate the performance limits of the planes themselves, but also to fly as adversary aggressor pilots to other American aircrews. The pilots were extremely professional and dedicated to the mission, even to the point of speaking Russian when on comms with other American aircrews.
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| Constant Peg MiG-17 at the front, Mig-21 at the rear |
As amazing as all this sounds, the real miracle of the whole story is the ground crews and maintainers of the aircraft, who were often very senior NCOs, a large number of which had served in the Thunderbirds. This was required as they needed to basically reverse engineer how to support these Russian planes with everything still labelled in Russian, with no manuals, translations, or original support crews to speak of to assist. Nothing short of astounding when you thing about that feat!
At the end of the day, I can't really do it enough justice with just a small blog write up with a few pictures. So here's a short 5 min documentary on youtube on the subject. Also, I embedded below, and even more excellent video from the 10% True youtube channel that has a couple of Constant Peg veterans commenting on recently declassified footage at Tonopah of the 4477th operations:
I think the final and most definitive work on the subject will have to be the book available by Col. Gail Peck (retired) who headed the project, which is available on Amazon:
Though, don't be fooled by the fact the squadron officially stood down in 1990, as our story doesn't end there. It was known that after the 4477th stood down, the remaining assets were reconstituted as Detachment 3 of 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, who flew much more modern threat aircraft such as MiG-29 Fulcrums and Su-27 Flankers. This was also disbanded, but is now likely operating those assets as a part of the 422d Test and Evaluation Squadron, with their aircraft likely being based out of Groom Lake itself now. It seems even locals have documented them showing up from time to time. So if you can hear or see military fighter jets in the skies of Nevada, you may want to take a closer look, to see if they are Russian in origin.
Unfortunately, it seems the onslaught of famous people dying continues, but unlike most, this one hits a little harder than most. I just learned that Ivan Reitman died on the 12th at 75 years of age.
This one hits harder than most because, unlike all the other fandoms I had growing up (ie. Star Wars and Star Trek), the Ghostbusters franchise still had it's missteps, but still tried to not only do right by the fans, but general audiences with the last movie, and was very good. So far, fans don't seem to be getting the middle finger from that franchise anymore, unlike the others I mention, who are still actively extending it.
Even if you aren't a Ghostbusters fan, there's plenty of other prolific movies he has been a part of: Stripes, Space Jam, Heavy Metal, Up In The Air, Evolution, Beethoven, Kindergarten Cop, Twins, and Animal House. I'm sure between all of those, everyone will find at least one or more to love in that list.
So my condolences to Jason Reitman and the rest of the family, as they (and audiences) lost one of the great ones in Hollywood.
You know, for a long time, I felt like Dr. Venkman on the subject of St. Valentine's day, but now, I'm just excited by how racked my brain is to figure out what good thing I can do for my lovely wife today. Any gift or act I do for her feels like it's just insufficient to let her know how much I love and appreciate her. Despite not being destitute, I just don't have the budget to buy the whole world, so we'll start with a song:
Who doesn't like a good tale of lost treasure? I can't help it, anytime there's a tale of "gold being up in them there hills", it will always get me interested. These type of tales are some of my favorite, despite the fact that a lot of them are likely just bogus. So again, slap on some head banging spooky music and read on, but don't get too comfy, as another post on them will come soon.
So I peruse the news today and look what I find:
Well, can't say I'm surprised. Considering Microsoft's history and reputation, I hope those composers take them to the cleaners. Preferably while playing the Halo soundtrack as they enter the courtroom.
Being that I am a big fan of aviation, history, and mystery, the website Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields is the perfect intersection of all three. If you have a similar penchant, it's more than worth a visit and will certainly lead you down a rabbit-hole of reading, and I felt it deserved it's own post.
I remember finding this site almost decades ago, around 2003 or so, and am glad it still up and going. From what I see, the author still provides regular updates and there is a really good amount of information on a MASSIVE list of (2,574 according to the author) unused airfields in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. This was the site that I sourced much of my info about the Hurricane Mesa test facility yesterday, and it has far more info than I was able to provide on it.
Despite the list being what I would call "exhaustive", some fields just don't have a lot of info available about them, as he may still be looking for info on them, or there isn't much into to find in the first place. Most others however, will have some very fascinating and lengthy write ups on their history with a litany of pictures of the airfields in their prime, and what they look like today, some of them not even existing anymore. The place is not only a great historical resource on these sites, but also a great safety resource for pilots to know of places to make emergency landings at places with a lessened risk to pilots, the plane, and potential bystanders.
The site is a one man operation, and is primarily supported by visitors like you, so he does have an option to make paypal donations. It's also neat that the site is partially supported by the American Aviation Historical Society as well.
Since the site has been in operation for almost 23 years, I wonder if is there is any way to gauge if it's one of the oldest personally owned and still operated/updated sites on the net.
The places he talks about are all arranged by state, and his long-form write ups are very well written, so go check it out and see if you have something interesting near you, or near any place you have an interest in!
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| As an added note, the AAHS website is another fantastic goldmine full of interesting stuff worth checking out, despite looking a little dated. |
This one's gonna be a biggie as it's gone by many names over the years. It started as the Hurricane Supersonic Research Site, then as the Supersonic Military Air Research Track, and is now called Hurricane Mesa Test Facility. Information gleaned from both the Wikipedia entry and Paul Freeman's Abandoned & Little Known Airfields site (who's info was partially sourced from a writing called “Chronology of Hurricane Mesa Test Facility” by Jack Reed, but I was unable to find a copy). All pictures are sourced from Paul Freeman's site as well, with credits attributed where possible.
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| A map of the facility that is displayed in the St.George airport. Pic taken by Tim Tyler in 2012. |
The story starts not long after WWII with the higher proliferation of jet aircraft and the need to have more sophisticated escape equipment (ie. ejection seats), as the USAF was (and still is) buying British ejection seats, as US companies producing them at the time were lagging behind their UK counterparts. So, come 1953, the Coleman Engineering Company of Torrance, CA was awarded a 2 million dollar contract to build a test track at a spot of land selected (and owned) by the USAF, and construction started subsequently in '54.
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| Photo of the rails taken May 10th 1959 by Norvin Alcorn. Note the cool car in the shot there. |
The site was selected due to it's relatively mild weather conditions, and a constant supply of braking water provided by the nearby Virgin river (and the remoteness likely helped security). The facility is on property owned by the USAF, and initially it was administered by the Indian Springs AFB (now called Creech AFB) in Nevada. The facility had a test track, and several support buildings/facilities. The track itself comprised of 12,000 feet of continuously welded rails that was the longest rocket research track in the US at the time. Once the facility was finished, operations were contracted to the Coleman company and tests began in 1955.
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| B-52 forward fuselage mounted on the sled sometime around 1955-1961. Note the Coleman logo near the nose (photo provided by Tim Tyler on A&LKA site) |
During their operations, Coleman engineers achieved a world land speed record using a 9,400-pound rocket sled on the track at 1,800 miles per hour (Mach 2.36). More regular or typical speeds run at the track would be around 1,050 mph (Mach 1.3) with a dummy filled with instrumentation called "Hurricane Sam", but the team reportedly also used apes for selected tests as well. The track was also reportedly used for the boosting of rockets launched from the site, but I couldn't confirm this, nor the types of rockets that may have been launched.
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| Another picture taken by Norvin Alcorn on the same day, with an F-102 Delta Dart fuselage mounted on the rocket sled. |
Coleman and the Air Force continued operations for 6 years, conducting 334 tests, until December 1961. These helped the Air Force to standardize its ejection systems and perfect a new ejection seat to make emergency escapes much safer for American pilots.
Subsequently, the facility has been listed as a Formerly Used Defense Site, which is government (Defense Department) owned land, and was leased to multiple companies over the years for continued use. Some of which are: Stanley Aviation Corporation, Bell Aircraft, Stencel Aero Engineering, Collins Aerospace (a division of Raytheon), Universal Propulsion Company, and BF Goodrich Aerospace.
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| Tim Tyler took this pic of the main gate in March of 2010. |
These companies helped develop multiple systems at the site that were implemented on multiple aircraft such as the B-47 Stratojet, B-52 Stratofortress, B-66 Destroyer, F-104 Delta Dart, FJ-2 Fury, F-106A Delta Dagger, F4H Demon, P6M Seamaster, B-58 Hustler, A-1 Skyraider, T-28 Trojan, T-6 Texan II, A-3B Skywarrior & B-66 Destroyer, EA-6B Prowler, F-15 Eagle, T-38, A-4 Skyhawk, F-16 Falcon, and the OV-1 Mohawk. That's a big list!
Stanley Aviation in particular are the ones who later built the adjacent gravel airfield at the site sometime around 1962-1965, to better facilitate personnel to transit to and from their company headquarters in Colorado without having to commute from St.George or Hurricane. They later paved the runway in 1975, but did not construct any hangars or other support buildings. The runway itself has been in a state of disrepair/out of service for some time, since before 1996 (more than 25 years).
Currently, the test site is owned/operated by Alliant Techsystems (ATK Aerospace), which is now a subsidiary of Northrop/Grumman, and tests are still regularly conducted there. Again, most of this info was obtained from the Abandoned & Little Known Airfields page for southern Utah, and I still recommend you visit it for the full story, as he has much more info than I could provide here in my summary.
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| October 2012 photo by Tim Tyler of one the sign with support building and and test articles. I don't doubt this is the original signage from the 50s. |
Another fun little aside on the facility, is that it was the focus/climactic setting of a little known techo-thriller novel written by local author Timothy Burton Anderson called, "The Reign of The Stavka". It was a book I remember enjoying as a young adult, and I still have a copy to this day. I remember meeting the author in passing one day, and I commented to him how much I liked it. Mr. Anderson was appreciative, but gave me the impression he was quite disappointed with the final product not being edited well enough, as it seems he thought it contained an excessive amount of mistakes by a new (at the time) author. In any case, if you like stuff like Tom Clancy, I'd still give it a recommendation, as it's a fun read.
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| The best picture I could find of the facility, from a Boeing newsletter. |
This was something that was a little bit of a local mystery to me, but it was really only a mystery to me, as I didn't take the time to really look up info on it, and info was somewhat hard to come by several years back. So, sitting on the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake, west of Ogden, in a fenced-off, guarded facility, near the rail-line causeway, is Little Mountain Test Annex.
It appears that this facility is key to maintaining and testing nearly all aspects of the Minuteman III ICBMs, with work primarily being contracted out to Boeing, despite the site being still owned by the state of Utah, and the facility being managed by the USAF via Hill AFB.
The best write up I could find on the facility was here by Boeing on their site in 2017. In their own article, they state that "Boeing annually tests the hardness integrity of missile subsections to ensure there is no degradation from aging, maintenance, repair or continuous operation. During radiation testing, employees monitor computer screens and call out instructions. They collect data that will be analyzed". Pretty fascinating all in all for such a small facility that is relatively so close to civilization, and I would highly encourage you to read the full article.
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| A picture of crew working at the facility from the article I mentioned earlier. |
One of the most intriguing blurbs I found about the site is that the Minuteman III system was only meant to last 10 years, but has been the mainstay of the ICBM fleet for more than 50, and most of the work at this facility has been to help increase the longevity and resilience of the system for being in service for so long. According to Boeing, the USAF has a program called Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which is meant to produce a more long-lived replacement for the aging Minuteman IIIs in the near future.
It also goes into a little bit of the history of the facility, stating that is was first established in 1957 to test the Bomarc missile system that was mentioned here before. Later, in 1974 the site was then converted into the Minuteman testing facility it is today, and has remained doing so ever since. They have since worked on all versions of the minuteman system.
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| Another, fairly old image of the facility from the CLUI site. |
Another fascinating factoid from the 2017 article states that they have not had a single workplace accident of any kind for more than 15 years. Just makes me wonder what was the last kind they DID have in 2002 (or earlier)...but I doubt I'll find out.
I think the quote of the day from that article I mentioned, is from one of the employees there, Jim Cyr, an 11 year veteran of working at the facility, “I didn’t know how much Little Mountain was doing for us until I started working here -- it’s pretty incredible. Once you dig into it, it boggles your mind. It lets you sleep at night.” Sure is true, Jim.
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| Picture of a test firing of the final product. Hopefully, we never have to live-fire it. |
Even when you don't want it to and the drama-llama rears it's ugly head again.
On Friday, Ian McCollum from Forgotten Weapons posted an announcement on his youtube channel that he and his publisher, Headstamp Publishing was going to make a full English translation of the Swedish book "The Foreigner Group - Our War in Ukraine 2014-2015" by some douchebag named Carolus Löfroos. The book being about a first-person account of the war and in the announcement video, the touted a crowd finding campaign needed to get it off the ground and published.
Immediately a classic internet shit-storm ensued, with reddit and the like freaking out that Ian and his publisher would be helping to finance a self identified and unrepentant neo-nazi and his memoirs about serving in a neo-nazi affiliated, foreign legion-type unit. As a result, Ian posted an apology video later that same day to say they will no longer be making the book, and that they made an oversight by not looking more closely into the author. He also immediately removed the original announcement video, with both videos now being unavailable to view at the moment of writing.
This is one of those things where I'm actually more than a bit torn between sides here. On the one hand, Ian and his publisher totally made the right PR move, and if his reasoning is to be believed, it was simply a bone headed mistake he and his publisher made. Cancelling the book is the right move to make sure they weren't directly financing a nazi dick-hole, nor glorifying/condoning a controversial Ukrainian unit with confirmed war-crimes and self avowed neo-nazi members. I for one, really don't want my money helping to finance that crap.
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| Uh huh. Suuure they deny being neo-nazi. Gross. |
On the other hand, it's extremely frustrating for a few reasons. One is that the situation in Ukraine is extremely complex (if not freaking bizarre), and despite the unashamed nazi paraphernalia of the Azov unit, it's really odd to note that they have members who are Jewish (even prominent ones), and they say that Israel is a model country they want to become like, as well as the fact Israel is one of the largest arms suppliers to Ukraine.
Secondly, is that (as Ian stated) this is a great manuscript with a REALLY unique point of view on a very modern conflict and with extreme levels of detail. That doesn't excuse the author at all, but it's funny how people are raising a big fuss about this neo-nazi author, when many other ACTUAL card-carrying nazis have written and published books on their memoirs and combat experiences, with no one batting a freaking eye (see here, here, and here).
Lastly, there's the suspicion I have that Ian was being a purely neutral academic about the situation, and may have known all along about the author's personal history. I suspect he was thinking it wouldn't matter to those who know that they are buying the book not for politics, but for the first hand account of what happened on the ground and it's affect on the world in it's current state.
History is ugly, it's often ugly and it will always be that way to us and to future generations.We cannot change the past, but we should still be learning from it's ugliness to make the future better. Sad to see a bunch of whiny brats jyped everyone out of a very interesting look at the Ukrainian conflict, even for those wanting to look at it in an academic sense. Pity we can't just cheat the nazi out of the money in the end.
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| I honestly doubt Ian has a single speck of neo-nazi sympathy in his body, and just wanted to make an interesting book to read about modern combat. |
