Would you stay & Fight?

[ragged]

If you lived in Ukraine, I mean.

Pretend you had the basic same home/family/job/skillset you do now, but in Kyiv today.

I think I'd try to figure out how to stay & fight & send the youngest DC away West with DH (who probably wouldn't want to stay & fight).

Your likely choice?

Nope , would run like feck with my family.My children are not canon fodder.

@MrsTerryPratchett

The truth is you don't know. I don't know. Every emergency and conflict shows us we don't know who we are until we are forced to find out.

I've been in a few very scary and dangerous situations at work. Fires, vicious assaults, life-threatening stuff. And what I've seen is that often the last person you'd think would be brave and effective is. The 17 yo joy rider steps up while the trained staff run and cry. Drug dealers defending women from assaults.

There was a passage in Schindler's List about a Jewish gangster who was the only one not to spit on a Torah when directed to by Nazis who he knew would immediately gun him down. That's never left me. That anyone can be brave or strong and anyone can do the right thing given the right situation. Or the wrong thing. Do I know I wouldn't grass someone up or collaborate to save myself or my children? I don't. And neither do you unless you've been in fear or torture, rape or death.

We should all just be very very happy we currently can't answer the question of whether we would fight. And hope very hard that we never find out.

Good post.

Though personally, I think I already know that I wouldn't be brave enough. Maybe I'd surprise myself, who knows. I don't think anyone cab be sure how they would react in that awful situation, and as you say, let us hope very hard that we will never find out.

I am a terrible shot. Really really bad, I have some kind of weird squint compensation thing going on which means I function fine, but if I have to look down a sight my brain goes mad. I can't do it.

My son is really really good at shooting, he'd be bang up for it.

I could throw Molotov cocktails I guess. I'd get my daughter and mother out and the rest of us would fight, I guess. I agree with whoever said up thread that sometimes one just finds courage in the face of flagrant outrage

I wouldn't fight, I would take me and my kids and flee and once there I would be brilliant at advocating for vulnerable people, making sure everyone is taken care of and fed, finding out information and finding resources. I wouldn't be great at entertaining the kids, but would be great at keeping the grown ups morale up. I'm good at making people laugh but my humour can be a bit dark and sweary for little ears.

If I didn't have kids I'd be a volunteer medic on the 'front line'. I'm not medically trained (although I am a first aider). I know I don't flinch from blood, am good at doing maths in my head, am great at improvising if I don't have the exact resources or medicines I need. I have a mind for that. I do sometimes wish I had pursued a medical path (I am not book smart but am great on my feet). I am quite fearless in situations where I have to be, I would rather run through gun fire to save someone that shoot a gun though. I would if I had to but only to protect somebody else's life.

I am so overwhelmingly grateful today that this is not my reality. My heart breaks for the people of Ukraine who are not getting to pontificate but instead are being faced with this as an actual reality.

Pre having kids- hell yes

Now? No way

As @MrsTerryPratchett said though, none of us really know. I know there are very few lines I would not cross to protect my kids and actually I think most parents are like that. Our strength, our anger, our courage, are not our own in those situations. It's primal. The need to run, or the need to fight. We can't know it until faced with it.

It probably wouldn’t be your choice. Ukraine has conscripted men only, they aren’t allowed to leave the country. That leaves the mother as the only parent who can take their children to safety. My responsibility is to my kids so I would run.

I honestly have no idea. I’m a feisty bird so there’s a chance I would but I could t say for sure.

As a mother I'd take them as a single person if I'd fight on oricioe. Fuck rusia and putin

I don’t know what I’d do

Right now I say stay but that isn’t reality or really knowing at the time

@MrsTerryPratchett

The truth is you don't know. I don't know. Every emergency and conflict shows us we don't know who we are until we are forced to find out.

I've been in a few very scary and dangerous situations at work. Fires, vicious assaults, life-threatening stuff. And what I've seen is that often the last person you'd think would be brave and effective is. The 17 yo joy rider steps up while the trained staff run and cry. Drug dealers defending women from assaults.

There was a passage in Schindler's List about a Jewish gangster who was the only one not to spit on a Torah when directed to by Nazis who he knew would immediately gun him down. That's never left me. That anyone can be brave or strong and anyone can do the right thing given the right situation. Or the wrong thing. Do I know I wouldn't grass someone up or collaborate to save myself or my children? I don't. And neither do you unless you've been in fear or torture, rape or death.

We should all just be very very happy we currently can't answer the question of whether we would fight. And hope very hard that we never find out.

Absolutely

Without dd, I'd stay. Both dd's dad and dp would want to fight, but one of us would have to run. Unless my parents took dd. She's 12. Me and dp just talked about this, if this was happening now in Manchester wtf would we do.

I would fight front line but I'd stay to tend to the injured. That would be my strength.

It’s normal to wonder what you’d do in the same situation and to empathise with people who are, but I don’t find the thread overall very empathetic. Lots of boasting - and I find that a bit tasteless when your resolve won’t actually be tested.

@12548ehe9fnfobms

I would leave and not fight. I would protect my family.

I would not kill Russian boys conscripted to the Russian army. You all realise they have no choice whether to fight or not & are aged between 18 & 27?.

My heart also goes out to all the Russian mothers with sons currently conscripted. Their deaths matter too.

Where's the diplomacy? This is all such macho bullshit in a world run by idiotic men. Convenient disaster capitalism on the heels of a pandemic & oh so predictable.

Yes, yes and yes.

Narcissists on both sides conscripting men by force and making them fight like gladiator slaves.

To all those saying you would flee do you think he will stop if Ukraine is a walk over? I don't I think Poland and then others. Finland, Sweden etc. You can only flee so far.

I had thought I would stay but seeing Kyiv there's no way I could keep dd in that situation. Although I'd have been too late. It's absolutely terrifying , I wish we could help .

Nope. I would have left Ukraine last week.

I like to think that I would but I wouldn't want my adult kids to, so I'd probably flee with them. If I could send them to Canada (to their dads) I would.

I did some war training in my old job and was utterly shit , just remembered . I'd be dead very quickly. The noise and fear even in a training exercise overtook me.

Yes I would stay

In fact I also did riot training and was hopeless at that - got set on fire and the trainers had to put me out!

No I'd take my DC and leave. My DH would have to make his own decision whether to join us or not.
How would you fight anyway ? Stand on the roof of your house with a ballistic missile ?
I would want my children out of a war zone as a priority. I actually said to my DH last week if I was in Ukraine I'd be out of there.

No my DC (2 under 6) need me more. My priority would be to get them out and somewhere stable and help to rebuild our lives.