This is yet another rough, experimental, fragmentary piece that I have been sitting on for a number of months, and tinkering with it a little bit, here and there. For the long and short: After the so-called "Russian Special Military Operation" started in Ukraine nearly a year ago (as of January 2023), I found myself jotting down a number of thoughts, which eventually streamed themselves into two different pieces. The one that came much more quickly and easily (Clean Hands//Dirty Hands), I already posted some months back. This one, however, had a far thornier and far more tortured development process (including some rather recurring, strident and quite insistent canine interruptions that, on one particular occasion, derailed my thought process so thoroughly and annoyed me so greatly, that I wound up incorporating it into the piece. For some odd reason (maybe spite), it seemed like one of those things that was so jarring and out-of-place that, ironically, it somehow fit, if that makes any sense).

Canine interruptions aside, another good reason for tortured development process of this piece is that some of it was born from no small measure of self-disgust/self-hatred in realising that, for all the talk of various forms of "privilege" that I, and a lot of folks like me might indeed have, and how a lot of it I may feel is a far more situational and subjective than the casual observer might realise, there is one form of privilege that I possess, and which I simply cannot deny. My undeniable, true privilege is the fact that most of my generation (namely Generation X), were one of the first cohorts in history (at least in the developed world), to have not found ourselves subjected to a Military Draft, and not forced to fight in a war.

Even if I make the lame, bleating, (albeit true), excuse that I have always regretted the fact that I never served: (I was medically unfit for service, having badly broken one of my knees in High School, and during the recovery process putting all my weight on the other one, eventually ruined it as well), it still doesn't change the fact that I was never forced to don a uniform. Every uniform I have ever worn, be it Boy Scouts, or a work uniform, was one that I chose to don.
So yes, that is my true, and undeniable privilege.

Hence, for all of those, who currently find themselves in a position, where they are forced to fight for their nation, their home, or even their very existence, there, but for the Grace of G-d, go I. All that aside, this is not a political statement in any way, shape or form, and should not be taken as such. As I also said in the A/N for the previous piece, I am past the point of giving a shit about politicians, period.

All of my sympathies belong to the ordinary Ukrainian people, who are being forced to defend their nation, and to suffer for the decisions of politicians. I also sympathise with the ordinary Russian people, who never wanted any part of any of this, and who still don't, but who, whether they like it or not, are currently finding themselves dragged along for the ride against their will.

All of that long-winded, barely-coherent, {TL;DR} diatribe aside, I suppose I could close this by making some lame statement about holding out hope that common sense prevails, but to be brutally honest, over a half-century of living on this particular ball of dirt has made me just a bit too pessimistic for that...