Synopsis: One boring night on Amazon Prime, I stumbled across the 2015 Russian WWI flick Battalion. Woman warriors march to the front lines, bayonets fixed, ready to charge into no man’s land! As I watched the drama unfold, another movie came to mind; Wonder Woman (2017) charging the German lines. How do the two movies compare? Uhh… different would be putting it mildly. Yet, despite being so different, they go hand in hand. They offer insights on their own, but when put side by side, create a whole picture. Wonder Woman and Battalion are polar opposites and teach opposite lessons. But they both serve the same purpose; to overwrite a dark moment in history, replacing it with a fantasy that’s both inspirational and comforting.
The Bancroft Man, $20 Clutched In His Hand
Synopsis: In The Madman and the Hand-cranked Blow Dryer, a group of archeologists discover the rambling diary of a tortured soul slowly going mad. There’s no consistent logic, coherent meaning, or even an apparent chronological order to the bizarre episodes scrawled across the tattered book’s pages. But nonetheless, the adventures can’t help but digest the entire manifesto cover to cover. The Bancroft Man is the first story they came across.
Natalya Meklin: A Hero at War, a Leader and Mother at Home
See that young lady sitting in the cockpit, grinning ear to ear? An observer today might chuckle and think she was a harmless little girl one would come across on a college campus or in a library. But the Nazis, at least the ones who survived her onslaught, would beg to differ. She was a war hero, and a deadly one. This was Natalya Meklin, an excellent combat pilot who flew PO-2 short-range low altitude night bombers into the thick of heavily defended Nazi strongholds. Natalya didn’t fight alone. On the contrary, she was a Night Witch – just one “fighting friend” in a whole unit of brave aviatrixes in the legendary 588th Night Bomber Regiment, the only combat aviation regiment in history that was entirely comprised of women,
The OODA Loop: A Closer Look At the Kenosha Shooting
Introduction: This episode of the Gunslingers USA Podcast features a frank conversation I had with Iowa resident Jake Pries, owner and lead instructor of a firearms training program in Iowa. Our topic of discussion: the firefight between Kyle Rittenhouse and three armed combatants on August 25 during the Kenosha riots.
