They also serve
The young Ukrainians who visit injured soldiers in hospital are there to say thanks, and to listen: and sometimes, to bring the gift of pineapples.
Liliia at the hospital
Liliia Trokhymets is still in her twenties, but she's already lived through the hardest of times: just days after we met in Kyiv back in June, she had travelled east to see her brother Roman, an infantryman in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. One evening they went for dinner, along with a friend, to the popular Ria pizzeria in Kramatorsk, when Russian missiles suddenly slammed into the building. 13 people were killed and more than 60 others were injured just a few feet away: Roman tried to save one woman's life, while Lillia was taken to hospital with concussion. It must have been impossibly traumatic.
Yet just a few weeks later, Lillia was in a car driving back to Kramatorsk, to visit injured soldiers in the hospital there. She filled the car with supplies, and took with her a stuffed cat mascot, in the style of the Internet-famous Stepan from Kharkiv.
Collecting supplies for their soldier friends
Her mission - named the Pineapple Project - was inspired by her experience of visiting her brother in hospital, and realising that some soldiers didn't have relatives nearby who were able to come and see them. So for months now, each Sunday, together with other young friends, she organises visits to soldiers in a large Kyiv hospital, raising funds to bring them gifts and extra supplies. And that includes boxes of pineapples - Roman's favourite fruit: according to Lillia sometimes it's important to bring people something which isn't urgent or strictly neccessary, just a sign of appreciation and gratitude.
I joined the group on one of their Sunday visits back in October, as they unloaded an impressive carload of fruit, personal hygiene supplies, and even a delivery of kebabs which had been a special request from some of the guys they had visited the previous week. "It's important just to be here, to give the guys some social contact, and show they are not being forgotten", she says. In each room they visit, Liliia bounds in like a ray of light, distributing bags of fruit and bottles of cranberry juice "They told us it's healthy, it's good for haemoglobin" and crucially, staying as long as possible to chat. "The most important thing is your time, that's your gift. And I think it's the least we can do, is to visit them and talk, to hear their stories and just tell them - thank you."
With Liliia and Margharyta
Liliia and her volunteer friends have built up a personal rapport with the soldiers they visit: she hugs each of them as she says goodbye to go onto the next room. One time, someone brought a guitar and they sang songs together: she has a beautiful voice. The young women have devised a system of printed forms which they bring with them, so they can make a note of what everyone wants, and then organise it for the following week: "We learn something every time we use this process - we learn and make it better". And most of the time, they sit on the edge of beds and listen, to men with horrific injuries, men who've lost limbs, who have pins holding bones together, who've spent months under fire in trenches, who’ve driven through minefields to rescue their friends, who've seen more horror than anyone should ever see.
Finally, at about eight in the evening, when the hospital is just about to close, they say their last goodbyes, pack up the remaining boxes, drop off a last gift with a nurse in intensive care, and grab a final coffee in the canteen before they leave. A day which offered an impressive glimpse into the life of Ukrainian volunteers - young people with huge energy and wide smiles, part of the unsung network of civilians who do so much to help their country, in this time of full-scale war. As Liliia said, they feel it is the very least they can do, when so many of their friends and family are sacrificing so much, for the defence of Ukraine.
Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) have every right to say what they like about Israel and the genocide of Palestinians as elected members of the US House of Representatives; they never took an oath to serve Israel . . .
I voted for Ron Desantis (R-FL) to be governor of Florida, not ambassador to Israel.
The recently ousted Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who took at least a dozen votes to get elected speaker, traveled to Israel immediately upon his election, declaring to the Israeli Knesset that the USA is steadfastly committed to supporting Ukraine in their war against Russia . . .
Was he running for speaker of the Israeli Knesset too?
Following his ouster . . . McCarthy (R-CA) traveled abroad again, this time to England, and expressed his open contempt for the white Republicans who make up the majority of the GOP and praised Democrats for their diversity during a debate at Oxford in the wake of his ouster as House Speaker . . .
Is he now running for the Prime Minister of the U.K.?
Nevertheless, he is free to go on media tours bashing white people and lobbying for Israel, because he has now resigned from the US House of Representatives . . . I can only conclude that the collective RINO butthurt over former Speaker McCarthy is all about the Israelis who have hijacked the American deep state war machine.
It has become so painfully obvious, especially where you have someone like Nikki Haley wagging her finger and shouting down Vivek Ramaswamy in a presidential debate on live national television when the questions of this Ukrainian war against Russia and any mention of Israel are concerned, that the United States government has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Israeli Political Action Committee.
https://cwspangle.substack.com/i/138320669/fight-your-own-wars-you-kikesucking-zionist-ass-whores