Dear Editor: 

Memory is the curse of being chronologically gifted. 

I remember the Cold War, Hungarian invasion, Vietnam, and the Domino Theory. 

I remember the Russian leader banging his shoe on the desk at the U.N. and saying to the West, “We will bury you.” 

I remember MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction (by nuclear weapons).

The Russian invasion of Ukraine makes me think I’m re-living the past.

Now, Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia, wants to reclaim all the nations that left Russian influence after the fall of the USSR, then move on to subsume the rest of the non-authoritarian controlled countries in Europe.  This is like having a criminal gang invade a town and take it over to rape the town literally and financially the move on the the next town.

Why is it important to resist this blatant aggression way over there on the other side of Europe?  Because history shows us that if left unchecked, it will continue across Europe and spring up like weeds across the world.

In the 1930s the US population didn’t want to get involved in wars on the other side of the world.  Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany demonstrated that distance didn’t matter.  When evil is running rampant in the world, we ignore it at our own peril.

Julius Hayden

Covington