Anyway, yeah, getting started.
With the Chinese and the Russians killing each other over oil fields or uranium or gold or whatever the hell it was you'd think we'd have kept our nose out of it, but President Tanner had other ideas. The Chinese were lighter red than the Russians and losing... So he cut a few deals and started shipping ATGMs, guns, heck, even tanks. Way to stay out of it! We had alerts and drills and false alarms constantly after that got out, but they weren't going to start a two front war and we sure weren't. Neither of us got the choice that mattered.
You remember the Magnificent Seven? What, no, not the movie. Those Poles. Yeah, those idiots. The Sovs were calling on their Pact "allies" for troops for the Chinese meat grinder and seven guys with German names said no. They weren't going. So they got shot. There were protests that turned into riots. A bunch of German sounding Poles got shot. The next set of riots... they shot back.
Now, it isn't like in the States. The civies here don't get to keep guns. So the Poles, they say the Germans gave it to them. The Germans say nope, not us, dumkopf. So the Poles put some units on the border to make sure nothing else gets in. The Germans match them and up it a little more. So, we've got a bunch of guys who think the other guy is doing wrong and they're all armed. Soon enough it's fucking Hatfields and MacCoys with artillery. Civvies start dieing on both sides. Everybody's pointing fingers and shouting it's that other guy's fault. Then Fritz over there says, "Fuck it!" and you've got tanks crawling over the border.
They didn't even have the decency to tell us. I mean, I'm watching it live on CNN. Ten minutes later we're all piling out and hitting the road. President Tanner held us out of Poland, but the entire situation was like dominoes. Germany tips over Poland tips over the Czechs, then US, USSR, UK, Hungary and so on till everybody but the Swiss and French are shooting.
I still don't know what really happened. Some guys I know say Fritz was trying to carve off a bit of Poland. Makes a bit of sense. Other guys tell me it was a commie plot to destabilize East Germany. That's really reaching. Knew this guy in 1 AD says it was "a gradual escalation of tensions permitted by the weakening of one side of the conventional and nuclear balance which allowed uncontrolled see-sawing". Uh, sure?
But I sure know who I blame. Here's to the Magnificent Seven! May they burn in hell.
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Leonid Padonchek
D-- Tak. Mostly true. Left some out. It was not guns and riots. It German citizens in Poland fighting. That wasn't propaganda. I know it to be true. Think about it. Armed men crossing your borders, killing your people, tearing apart your country.
After the German military cross borders, we fight them. The Czechs join us. If Germans crush Poland what is to stop them from the Sudetenland again? Fucking history. We pushed them back.
We make big mistake. Our leaders tell the world we will dismember Germany. This will not happen again. Until then, NATO was willing to sit. Negotiate a peace between us. We tell them and Americans, British, Turks and others fight to preserve Germans.
Then you fuck up. You push us back across Poland. Enter the Soviet Union. Germans. Three times in one century! In the Motherland. We'd already used nuclear weapons on the Chinese. Why did you think you were immune?
I don't know if anybody other than the Holy Father was talking peace anymore. Neither side was listening. We used one on Soviet soil. Think about that. It was a warning and a promise. You used one back. First one then another then another then another another another another. Back across Poland.
Like an illness, it spreads. Gradual. None one wants to end the world in one blow. But no one wants to lose. So we all do. Damn.
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