Being a crusty old horse soldier,I tend to be a bit of a military history buff,so my personal library is chock full of military history books.Well,since we got settled in here,I ran across one I had'nt read in several years,and re-read it-it was an account of the winter war between the Soviet Union and Finland,in the winter of 1939/40.Well,it was a pretty good read,and enjoyed it,but there was one anecdote in there that totally set me off-again.
A bit of background on this war,for those unfamiliar with a lot of world history-Joe Stalin had territorrial designs on tiny Finland,in the late 30s,to serve as a buffer against a resurgent German war machine,and Tiny,proud Finland was not budging-eventually,the Red Army invaded,and the Finns fought back the best they could,giving the Russians quite a shellacking,but eventually having to sue for peace,and cede large areas of Karelia to the soviets.
Anyway,as war clouds loomed over Finland,and political negotiations got nowhere with Stalin and Molotov,the Finns began to prepare for war,even though grossly unequipped and outnumbered,they began doing what they could for the inevitable battles ahead.Reserves were called up,and thats where this particular story comes up.
Tens of thousands of military age Finns were called up to mobilization centers all over the country,and there was one guy-don't know what his name was offhand,but in civilian life,the guy was a Lutheran pastor.The draft authorities offered to exempt him from military service,due to him being a clergyman,but he felt he needed to do his part to defend his nation,and was willing to serve as a common rifleman,as the Finnish army had no chaplain's corps,as most armies do.
Well,he did just that,and was assigned to an infantry unit fighting in Karelia during the fierce fighting there,in the early part of the war.Well,the fighting raged for days,with the Finns stubbornly holding their positions against Russian assaults.Finally there was a lull in the fighting,and both sides stopped to lick their wounds,and recuperate a bit.Suddenly,agonizing screams of a crazed horse,driven mad by the artillery fire,and having gotten hung up on the barbed wire,began to be heard by everyone.Both sides waited-to see if the horse would die-he did'nt-and the screams went on for over an hour.It was extremely nerve wracking and was pushing everyone over the edge-finally,our friend the rifleman/chaplain,had had enough-he laid down his rifle,grabbed a revolver,and against orders,began walking out into no man's land,to put the poor creature out of it's misery.It was several hundred meters to where the horse was hung up on the wire,and the guy's fellow soldiers watched,fearing he would be shot down in his tracks,the minute he showed himself.Nope-he was allowed to walk all the way to the horse,and he did his duty,administering the coup de grace to the wounded animal.He then turned and began walking back to friendly lines-and almost made it too.Suddenly,a burst of machine gun fire cut him down.THAT set me off,reading THAT!Why,you miserable little communist prick....I hope theres a special place in hell for the likes of you.This man,who performed a brave and selfless act,did'nt deserrve to be shot in the back-if you got him in a fair fight when the fighting resumed,thats fine-its expected -but what you did was murder,pure and simple.I'm STILL pissed,reading that......war is an ugly business-I know that first hand,having been there a few times meself-but stuff like that is uncalled for.
