https://scottritter.substack.com/

Sep 01, 2024
The author (center) with Ilya Volkov (left) and Alexander Zyrianov (right) at Mamayev Kurgan (Volgograd)

I had hoped to make the Summer of 2024 a memorable one—building bridges of friendship to Russia, working to develop knowledge and information as an antidote to the poison of Russophobia in America, and trying to prevent a nuclear war between my country and the Russian Federation.

The U.S. government had other plans.

Growing up in a military family, I was immersed in patriotic themes built around the notion of service to one’s country.

On the wall of my bedroom my parents hung two framed posters. The first showed President John F. Kennedy’s face in profile, with the famous words from his inaugural address superimposed over it: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

The second was a poster showing an American prisoner of war behind barbed wire. “The Code of Conduct,” the poster’s title read.

“I am an American fighting man,” the poster read. “I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.”

It was destined that I follow in my father’s footsteps to serve my country as a Marine, and to abide by the code of an American fighting man. When I was commissioned, I took an oath “that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God". Ctd....