OPINION: 'For the first few days of the war, he and his family, including 6-year-old twin daughters, hunkered down in the basement of their home in Bucha. But last week, when bombs destroyed nearby apartment buildings, the risk to his…
In September 2002, through Rotary International, I traveled as part of a team of three, through Eastern Europe to Ukraine to deliver medical equipment to the first minimally invasive surgical clinic in the city of Ternopil, near Lviv, in western Ukraine. I spent time in Ternopil and Lviv, meeting with physicians, teachers, business owners and local elected officials.
It took them 23 harrowing hours to reach Ternopil. His wife and daughter are now safe, for the moment, with friends in Poland, and my physician friend has returned to Ukraine to care for the wounded. Perhaps for the first time in human history, the entire world is now bearing witness, moment by moment, to the truth that war is always hell. There are no lasting winners or losers. Throughout history, the public relied on the art and craft of foreign correspondents, playwrights, artists, poets and novelists to illustrate this truth for us. Now we can all see it for ourselves.