Veterans Day

This Veterans Day, I want to raise up the memory of my first cousin Kirby. 

By the time I knew the fellow at all, he was a true deplorable, a drunk whose charm had worn off, kept alive by an abused wife who shared his addiction. Had he lived so long, he would have been a rabid MAGA fan, finding release for his id in the Trumpist grievance cult.

But as a very young man, he served his country and the war effort against Nazi Germany with the terrible heroism of necessity. He was a merchant seaman, plying the Murmansk run -- the Arctic Ocean sea supply voyage from the north Atlantic, skirting Norway and Finland, to the Russian port. In that war, the Atlantic allies, Britain and the U.S., supplied Russia with war materiel until Stalin's regime could bring to bear its vast armies against the invading fascists in eastern Europe. (We forget or never knew that Russian suffering broke the back of Hitler's empire.)

The Arctic sea convoys were terribly dangerous, threatened by both the German navy and awful sea conditions.

About 1,400 merchant ships delivered essential supplies to the Soviet Union under the Anglo-Soviet agreement and US Lend-Lease program, escorted by ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and the U.S. Navy. Eighty-five merchant vessels and 16 Royal Navy warships (two cruisers, six destroyers, eight other escort ships) were lost.

That was cousin Kirby's war -- though not a member of the U.S. military, he was indeed a veteran of the Allied war against fascism.