One of my patients at work is Ukrainian. 83 yrs old. His wife was...

handing out 3 musketeer bars commemorating 60 yrs anniversary of VE Day.
He cant speak so she did in broken English with her American grandson there.

She spoke of the war and how her parents were killed by the SS in the Ukraine just hours after they put her and her sister on a truck to Moscow, where she worked in a factory that mad Soviet army uniforms.

The conversation got to "history" and how we should educate our kids about the war and what really happened. "This can never happen again. 40 million Russians died", her two brothers were killed in action.

Then she pulled out a box of medals, some Soviet some Ukrainian., commemorating the 30, 40, 50,, 55 and 60th anniversaries of VE. Another was a bronze medal she got in 1946, Stalin on the medal, red ribbon, honoring her service as a worker to the war effort. She then produced a gold medal, Stalin on it. This was her husband's. The grandson translated it for me. Stalin on the front and the words "Valor in battle, on back, the dates 1941-42, underneath that "Stalingrad"!

Imagine what this man went through during that siege that turned the Nazis back and reversed the course of the war.

The Russians were instrumental in winning the war over Hitler and their war heroes should be honored just as ours are.

Bu$h should do some reading on the Battle of Stalingrad and see what this man experienced first hand. And for the bravery that the Russians had during those terrible times.

it gave me a small taste of the sacrifices of these people. I'm a little envious of you that you get to meet these people and hear their story from their own lips.

The lack of weapons, everyone got ammo but every other man got a gun. They announced"When a man with a gun dies you pick up his gun and charge".
Unbeleivable!

the fight, he was shot. I have no doubt that the conscripts were treated brutally.

Compared to Stalingrad, Kursk, the siege of Leningrad, etc, the Western Front was a bunch of minor skirmishes.

The idiot boy's speechifying is a fine display of ignorance.

The undoubted criminality of Stalin aside, the world owes a tremendous debt to the Red Army of those ghastly years. No serious student of the matter doubts that World War Two was won by the men and women of the Soviet Union.

Lost in the cold war rhetoric and the current fad of demonizing Yalta is the immense sacrifice of the Russian people during WWII. Somehow this has become a victim of historical amnesia.

Did the Russians win the war single handedly: No

Were they critical in blunting the thrust of the growing power of the Nazis: Absolutely

Have they ever been properly thanked/recognized for their sacrifice: Absolutely not.

of him on 60 minutes recently saying the Americans saved europe from the Nazis, not a word mentioned about the Russians. So many forget the huge contribution of the Russians in this.

She gave me a look of fear and disgust and said "This is very, very bad. President bu$h is killing poor people like Hitler did. This is very, very bad."
People that have seen the wrath of fascist tyranny speak volumes.