American Volunteer Mark Gregory Paslawsky Died in Ukraine — Knowing What He Was Up Against — a Comment regarding How Easily Political Corruption Overcomes Personal Courage — Think of His Example Occasionally and Ponder the Nature of Duty

21 August 2014

Theme

The committed donate their lives, even when they know they will be overwhelmed.

In this brief account of Mark Paslawsky’s death on free Ukraine’s behalf, we see our corrupt age embodied in all its banal evil

VICE News’ account of Mark Paslawsky’s service and battle death in Ukraine caught my eye:

Mark Gregory Paslawsky, the sole American fighting on the Ukrainian side of the war in the east of the country, died from injuries sustained in battle in the town of Ilovaysk on Tuesday.

[T]he 55-year-old investment banker was a Manhattan native, and had a slight limp and a pronounced New York accent, making him seem an unlikely candidate for a soldier in an eastern European war that has already claimed more than 2,000 lives.

He said he decided to take up arms against the separatist Russia-backed rebellion because of his family's Ukrainian background, as well as the frustration and helplessness that came with watching news reports on Ukraine's deteriorating situation after Moscow's annexation of Crimea.

"Given what I saw, the level of incompetence, the corruption, the lack of activity — I just decided that I needed to go and participate. If there was ever a time to help Ukraine this was the time to do it," he told VICE News.

After graduating from West Point, Paslawsky served in the US Army Rangers until he was 32 years old.

Being a West Pointer and former Army Ranger, Mark Paslawsky had to have known what he was getting into. Which makes him arguably real in a way that the soullessly empty suits who run the world are not.

Consider Paslawsky’s assessment of the realities of corruption

See whether you agree with him:

To me it’s all about revolution now.

It all boils down to . . . corruption and the fact that we’ve not seen change for twenty years.

You can’t have partial mobilization. Let’s have full mobilization. Let’s get it [the war] over with.

You go into a city . . . [and] there’s no follow-on by civil affairs people to fix the water and the electricity and the phone lines, the basic necessities of life.

So it’s a continuation of a lack of planning at all levels.

The political elite has to be destroyed here.

The moral? — On one side, duty to the larger public cause — On the other, self-serving narcissists

I cannot come up with a potentially more appropriate contrast between the two poles of moral rectitude, than this one.

Mr. Paslawsky modeled courageous commitment to something arguably fine in the face of the probably insurmountable odds against him and his Ukrainian volunteer unit.

Paslawsky’s allegory stands for:

(a) the state of the world today

and

(b) what it will take to overcome the self-seekers, who have turned most of the human experiment into a cesspool.

Americans seeking the relevance of Mr. Paslawsky’s example need look no further than Ferguson, Missouri or Washington, DC.

We are buried in our own oppressive forms of corruption.

PeteFree.com

American Volunteer Mark Gregory Paslawsky Died in Ukraine — Knowing What He Was Up Against — a Comment regarding How Easily Political Corruption Overcomes Personal Courage — Think of His Example Occasionally and Ponder the Nature of Duty