Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
The Battle of Kulikovo: Russian Liberation from the Muslim Horde
Monday, September 14, 2020
Sergey Prisekin’s rendition of Kulikovo (1980)
Raymond Ibrahim : Today in history, on September 8, 1380, Russia began its long march
to liberation from the Tatar yoke, by way of a battle that is as
important to Russian history as the battles of Tours and Vienna are to
the West.
Although pagan when they conquered Russia around 1240, by 1300 the
Mongols were thoroughly Islamized. Arabic was adopted, “the entire
Muslim religious establishment of qadis, muftis, and the like arose in
Sarai, the Golden Horde’s capital on the lower Volga,” and “sharia,
Muslim religious law,” reigned supreme. “With this the Russo-Tatar
conquest society entered the mainstream of Medieval Christian-Muslim
frontier life,” that is, it entered into a familiar paradigm of enmity
and war, punctuated only by vast sums of gold and slaves flowing from
Russia to the Horde.
In 1327, Uzbek Khan’s cousin Shevkal—“the destroyer of Christianity,”
according to a Russian chronicle—asked a boon of his khan: “allow me to
go to Rus to destroy their Christian faith, to kill their princes and
to bring you their wives and children.” Uzbek consented. At the head of a
vast horde, Shevkal invaded Russia “with great haughtiness and
violence. He inaugurated great persecution of the Christians, [using]
force, pillage, torture, and abuse.” Nor were Russians ignorant of the
reason behind their (renewed) sufferings: everywhere in their chronicles
“they appear as defenders of the faith battling to save Christianity
from marauding infidels driven by religious animosity.”
Moreover,
“Mongol atrocities” are always recorded “as incidents in a continuous
religious war.” When the Golden Horde’s infrastructure began to fracture from
internal discord in 1359, the principality of Moscow (or Muscovy) began
to defy its overlords. So Khan Mamai, seeking to squash the rebels and
“impose Islam on the Russians,” made for Moscow with, according to
sources, some 100,000 Turco-Tatars in 1380. Boasting that they would put
their swords “to the test for the Russian land and the Christian faith”
against “the armor of the Moslems,” the Russians accepted the
challenge.
Under the general leadership of Grand Prince Dmitri Ivanovich of
Moscow, some 50,000 Russians went out and met the khan at Kulikovo
Field, near the Don River and other tributaries. The opposing armies
were so vast as to be spread out over eight miles. The Christians
strategically positioned themselves between rivers and dense forests,
thereby limiting the Tatar horsemen’s maneuvering and flanking
abilities.
“I will neither protect my face nor hide in the rear, but let us all
brothers fight together,” Dmitri said in response to his nobles’ pleas
to stay out of harm’s way: “I want to die for Christianity ahead of
anyone else, with deed as well as word, so that all others who see it
will become bold.” (More practically, explained the grand prince, “it
is better that we fall in battle than become slaves of these infidels.”)
Once battle commenced on September 8, 1380—640 years ago today—“there
was such a great massacre and bitter warfare and great noise, such as
there never had been in Russian principalities,” writes the chronicler;
“blood flowed like a heavy rain and there were many killed on both
sides.” Although outnumbered two-to-one, the Russians, “seek[ing]
revenge for Tatar offenses,” fought with a savage fury. True to his
word, Dmitri was seen at the front “striking to the right and to the
left, killing many; he himself was surrounded by many [Tatars] and was
hit many times on his head and his body.”
