Thomas Wictor

My friend Colonel Supotnitskiy sends me his take on the US and our place in the world at this particular moment in history:

My book is a response to two American books:

F. R. Sidell (editor), E. T. Takafuji (editor), D. R. Franz (editor). Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare. Washington, 1997.

G. Zubay, R. Balfour, B. Chubak et al. Agents of Bioterrorism: Pathogens and Their Weaponization. New York, 2005.

I have done everything as required by the Russian communist Vladimir Lenin: Learn from the Americans and outrun them.

See for yourself whether I have succeeded in creating defenses against these two major books.

The United States is a country of extremely advanced technology and extremely advanced science. Russia is far behind the U.S. I have to learn from the American scientists. In my book there are about about 1000 references to the works of American authors.

I don’t know if the colonel views the US and Russia as rivals, foes, enemies, frenemies, bitter exes, kissing cousins, pals, or whatever. I’ve never asked him.

Since he’s my friend, I don’t put him on the spot. What he wrote above was volunteered, completely without prompting from me. We were discussing a political cartoon that showed a particular view of the relationship between Presidents Putin and Obama. The colonel was unfamiliar with some of the American slang terms in the cartoon. When I explained them to him, he replied with the message above.

The disarticulation (the colonel asks me to use this medical term rather than “dissolution”) of the Soviet Union caused the colonel, his wife, and their son to live for an extended period at a level of privation I can’t comprehend. Since I don’t have his permission to write about it, I won’t. However, what he told me illustrates the family’s iron determination and their superhuman refusal to give in to despair, negativity, and bitterness.

Imagine everything that you’ve known in your life changing almost overnight. Everything.

He’s a remarkable man, and I’m privileged to know him.