Weaponized Reading in Life’s Battlefield
The deadly sting of the Russia-Ukraine war has touched my family. My first cousin, dear brother, with whom we grew up in the same jampacked soviet appartment, survived the terrible 90’s and navigated our adolescence years until I left to work abroad, was sent to his first assignment at the end of 2024. Lost on the battlefield soon after. 1,5 years of silence and waiting followed. Was he in captivity or … we did not know. Finally, this week my family will be given a chance to say goodbye.
He fell as a hero.
We hold the line.
Because of this war, I came to an understanding of many things about life. We are all on the battlefield. But many of us do not know it.
Following the development of the war, with a larger, better-equipped enemy against a country that did not have an army at the beginning, I have realized that the force that kept Ukraine standing was the quality of its people on the front lines.
The Ukrainian army was filled with volunteers who had never pursued a military career. They came from different professional and educational backgrounds. I remember seeing professors giving lectures from the trenches in body armour. I remember listening to the leadership of the Azov brigade of the Ukrainian army with my mouth open, understanding that I was listening to highly educated people. It broke my belief that the army had been sort of “thoughtless”, as the old soviet anecdotes presented.
This gave me strong evidence that what General Mattis said was true.
For the younger officers who might view this lecture, I can tell them how they can become four-star generals. They can fight enemies who are dumber than a bucket full of rocks. And those are generally enemies who have not had the same rigor in pressing themselves to learn from history and to be curious about the world around them.
General James Mattis (An nterview to UCTV and Harry Kreisler) 2014
I wrote earlier that we are all on the battlefield, but many of us are sleeping on this idea. The reality is, there is a war between the good and the evil, tyranny and democracy, slavery and freedom, righteousness and love of sin. This war has casualties. As Hosea said, people perish for the lack of knowledge. To be more precise, the quotation sounds like this according to KJV:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
Bible – King James Version (The book of Hosea 4:6)
The law Hosea refers to is not only religious texts, but curiosity about the world around and history. If people reject the knowledge, they become the enemy who is dumber than a bucket full of rocks. The person who treats self-education seriously is set to win in the battle. I believe that this is the reason Ukraine stands.
The tragedy of my brother’s loss is that the two months of instruction before the most deadly battle robbed him of a chance to come back, like most of his compatriots in that assignment. This is the most painful fact for me. The trenches take the lives of experienced and prepared soldiers too. But the number of lost lives of newly employed combatants is in much bigger proportion, I assume. History will show.
Technically, he was sent to his death. His brave soul did not have to be lost like that. I wonder what would have happened if he had specialized in any military discipline? I mourn his life, and I am trying to make sense of his sacrifice. At least I want to remember that I am on the battlefield and I need to have rigor in pressing myself to read and learn.
In this interview, General Mattis – a four-star US general – talked about weaponizing reading and education. Making good humor your armour. Strengthening body, soul, and spirit. We are on the battlefield, and we need to hold the line.