It was 1965 when my brother and I joined the Marine Corps. It was obvious we would be going to Vietnam upon the completion of training. Vietnam was the latest battleground to stop the “Red Horde” as they sought to enslave the world. Vietnam was the line in the sand to stop a domino effect of countries throughout Southeast Asia falling into communist hands.

Liberals said it would never happen. But it did! Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were enclosed by the “Bamboo Curtain” and shut off from the Western world. The fall of these nations resulted in the deaths of as many as two and a half million lives. Cambodia’s “killing fields” were a stark reminder of communism’s price tag.

During and after WWII, liberals refused to see the dark side of socialism/communism. As tens of millions died under the iron fist of Stalin and Mao, the Left refused to open its eyes and see the carnage that results when evil is allowed to go unchecked. My first trips to Vietnam and later Cambodia beginning in 1989 only confirmed what those of us who served there knew: Communism is pure evil!

Cambodia in 1999 was still a nation searching for its soul. How could human beings inflict such brutality on their own people? Pol Pot was not an aberration of communism. He was the child of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

While the living standard of Vietnam appears somewhat better now than it did in 1989, like China, it is only the appearance of freedom, but with no substance. It has no real political freedom. The Vietnamese are subjects to their communist masters.

Now that brutality is being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine, who had only been free from their masters in Moscow since 1991. Yes, they struggled with corruption for decades, just like Russia. Powerful oligarchs did their best to prevent economic freedom from taking root in the former Soviet Bloc countries, including Ukraine. Think Burisma Oil & Gas and Hunter Biden!

Who knew that Vladimir Putin was such a cruel tyrant? Anyone who has been paying attention to what has happened since he rose to power. Rising to power in the KGB does not happen by being a nice guy. Putin has always been a thug who kills his opponents and anyone who opposes him. This maniac has always wanted to see the restoration of “Mother Russia” to be his legacy.

As always happens, the more Putin became consumed with power, the more paranoid he became. He secluded himself from all but a handful of odd people; people who would only tell Putin what he wanted to hear. Sound familiar? Putin lived in a bubble of like-minded people.

It seems to me the more President Volodymyr Zelensky worked to eliminate corruption in his government and the closer to the West he moved, the more of a threat it made him. Now the people of Ukraine are once again seeing communism in its true form. Only a miracle can save them from the onslaught because Biden won’t. This is what happens when you have weak leadership. As our enemies watched the Afghanistan debacle, they took the full measure of Biden and found him wanting. Like Afghanistan, it didn’t have to happen this way!

Something to pray about!