{"id":157221,"date":"2024-05-31T07:15:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T11:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=157221"},"modified":"2024-05-30T14:18:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T18:18:09","slug":"old-mans-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=157221","title":{"rendered":"Old Man’s War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Old Man’s War by John Scalzi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, give Scalzi’s\u00a0Old Man’s War<\/em> a read. It’s military science fiction in the vein of Heinlein’s\u00a0Starship Troopers.\u00a0<\/em>Set in a relatively near future,\u00a0Old Man’s War<\/em> starts with a group of octogenarians who have all volunteered for military service. In space. Earth in the future is much like Earth in the present. Overpopulation concerns, pollution, and everybody is still warring with everybody else.<\/p>\n

Off Earth, things are different, and very much unknown. There’s a Colonial Union that has advanced technology that’s not been shared with all of humanity. They will take Earthlings to settle colonies, but nobody ever comes back. Similarly, the Colonial Defense Forces recruit for off-world service, but it’s a one way ticket. As such, and perhaps unlike ever in human history, they recruit exclusively from the ranks of the elderly. You hit 75 and off you go up the space elevator (the science behind its operation totally unknown to anyone on Earth), never to see or speak to anyone on Earth again. Ten years in the CDF and you get sent to a colony. Most won’t make it those 10 years.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot explored in those themes before it’s revealed just how these elderly people become humanity’s greatest warriors. They then go through a long series of brutal campaigns against imaginative aliens. It’s a great read if you’ve got the time and inclination. I’m shocked it hasn’t been made into a movie (or even TV series) yet, but I’m sure it will at some point if you’re one of Zoolander’s kids who can’t read good.<\/p>\n

Where am I going with this? We’ve got an old man’s war scenario playing out right now in Ukraine. With the war unpopular amongst the youth of both Ukraine and Russia, there are far more grey hairs and liver spots on front line troops than you’ve seen before. This is more like the desperate final days in the Battle of Berlin than it is Dad’s Army.<\/p>\n

The New York Post<\/a> did a piece not long ago on the old<\/del> aged<\/del> experienced men entering Russian service in Crimea. This is a result of the unpopular war causing the exodus of young men of traditional military service age. Reservist and veteran privates and NCOs might get called back if they’re under 50, and under 65 is the limit for senior officers.<\/p>\n

Some of this is by design. For some reason, Ukrainian conscription was only recently\u00a0lowered\u00a0<\/em>to men aged 25 (from 27). Fortune reports on the situation in Ukraine<\/a>;<\/p>\n

As thousands fled Kyiv in the first days of Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion, one 57-year-old grandmother hurried in the opposite direction. Liudmyla Menyuk was going to sign up for the army to avenge her son who\u2019d been killed fighting the Russians almost a decade before.<\/p>\n

Many Ukrainians of Menyuk\u2019s age have volunteered, sometimes motivated \u2014 like she was \u2014 by the explicit wish to stand in for a youth who might otherwise die in their place. \u201cI performed my duties well,\u201d she told Bloomberg in an interview, \u201cso I could save the life of a young Ukrainian.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the enthusiasm of Ukraine\u2019s elder citizens compared with their younger counterparts has turned into a weakness for the country\u2019s army, as the onslaught against it drags into a third year and it struggles to repel Russia\u2019s advances. With his country outgunned and outmanned, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been vocal about the country\u2019s need for weapons \u2014 and recently reaped the reward of his appeals. He is quieter on the much more sensitive matter of the need for men.<\/p>\n

Front-line soldiers interviewed by Bloomberg said the aid package approved by US Congress last month has started to ease pressure on equipment, which had been heavily rationed so long as the bill\u2019s passage remained uncertain. Yet, despite a new mobilization law lowering the age of the draft, manpower remains a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the people I talk to are about 40-45 years old,\u201d said Pavlo Narozhnyi, who raises funds for artillerymen, adding that \u201cyounger people \u2014 especially younger than 30 \u2014 are relatively rare.\u201d A senior military official speaking on condition of anonymity echoed that assessment, citing an average fighting age of 43-45.<\/p>\n

As much as the war\u2019s recently stepped up in new theaters \u2014 drone strikes on energy installations, missile barrages, attacks on ships in the Baltic \u2014 the dispute is fundamentally over territory, and so depends on Ukraine\u2019s ability to replenish its soldiers. And that poses a problem for a country with a third of its adversary\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Until sustaining a major injury last year, Menyuk fought despite her poor hearing and eyesight, while others interviewed for this story complained of heart problems and even ailments that had yet to be properly investigated because of limited access to medical care on the front line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a problem yesterday. And it is only getting worse,\u201d said Oleksiy Melnyk, who works at Kyiv\u2019s Razumkov Centre think tank, speaking of the aging in Ukraine\u2019s ranks.<\/p>\n

Russian troops have unleased their firepower all along the front line and made incremental advances this year, capturing the eastern city of Adviivka in the process.<\/p>\n

Last year Vladimir Putin\u2019s former defense minister outlined detailed plans to expand Russia\u2019s armed forces even further: to 1.5 million people from 1.15 million now. So far, its military has been attracting soldiers with the promise of generous pay and a new law making it easier for young conscripts to serve at the front line.<\/p>\n

In Ukraine, recruitment remains a struggle.<\/p>\n

The ethos that the young should avoid the battlefield has been enshrined into law with conscription aimed, until very recently, only at those aged over 27 years old. Recently that was lowered to 25 but the situation is made worse by the ineffective call-up of those who do fall into the target range. In a population displaced by fighting, many young people can\u2019t be found. Only half of the 4.5 million displaced have re-registered at a new address, according to official statistics.<\/p>\n

Another factor is that mothers who fled their country with teenage sons aren\u2019t sending them back now they\u2019re of age to volunteer, so there are fewer men signing up at the lowest end of eligibility \u2014 youths of 18, 19 or 20.<\/p>\n

Add to that a demographic backdrop that means there are twice as many Ukrainians in their late thirties, owing to a 1980s baby boom, as in their early twenties, when families grappling with the uncertainties of post-Soviet Ukraine weren\u2019t rushing to have kids.<\/p>\n

Aside from the unpopular politics of sending Ukraine\u2019s youth off to die, the exemption for men aged between 18 and 25 from front-line combat is motivated by a belief that they will be key to rebuilding Ukraine in the future, said lawmaker Serhiy Rakhmanin, a member of the parliamentary committee for security and defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how long the war will go on for, and what resources we will need, and for how long,\u201d he told Bloomberg in an interview. But that same uncertainty means many older soldiers now suffer from neglected illnesses and traumas that are the costs of fighting a war with no end in sight.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the invasion Vitaliy Pryvrotskyi, who is 52, signed up along with other friends who like him were veterans of the Soviet Afghan war \u2014 one advantage of experience some elder Ukrainians have over the younger generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was signing up the medical commission didn\u2019t check anything,\u201d Pryvrotskyi, who serves near Kharkiv, said by phone during a moment\u2019s rest from the job he\u2019s been assigned taking care of military vehicles. \u201cThey said, look, you\u2019re volunteering for perhaps a few days. The war will be over soon!\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife, he says, worried so much about his being killed but he told her: \u201cWe worked hard to earn enough to make our life comfortable. I don\u2019t want the Russians to come and take it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, it was his wife who died. She succumbed to a stroke while he was away fighting, which he attributes to the pain of his absence.<\/p>\n

Now, Pryvrotskyi struggles to walk in protective gear for more than 100 feet without feeling constriction in his heart. He is in no position to heed the doctor\u2019s advice that he should avoid stress. Like many, he\u2019s served without interruption since the war\u2019s start without respite.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More at the source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, give Scalzi’s\u00a0Old Man’s War a read. It’s military science … Old Man’s War<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":157222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,384,640,236],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-army","category-russia","category-ukraine","category-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157227,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157221\/revisions\/157227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}