Why Ukraine Inspires Me

When I was a 13 year old sophomore in a tough Brookyn high school, I was confronted in the locker room after gym class by six bigger older students who thought they could intimidate and humiliate me. While my my friends -mostly fellow honor students-ran away, they made a number of threatening and deprecating comments, ending with one of them saying “Tie my shoelace.” Having faced bullies all my life,I instinctively responded by saying “F..k you” and was knocked out cold. When I woke up, I immediately I went up to my home room and threw up, but I was ready to go back the next day and face them again. Unfortunately, my parents made me transfer to another high school out of the district where I spent the next 3 years, but I was proud that when tested, I stood up for myself against impossible odds! It set the tone for how I was going to live the rest of my life. Given this experience, you can see why I strongly support Ukraine in resisting a much more powerful country which seeks to control it, humiliate it and destroy its elected leadership. Ukraine is not only standing up for itself, it is standing up for every small country who hopes to maintain its independence, and for every individual who refuses to allow “might to become right.” When intimidation overwhelms morality and the rule of law, no one is secure. Moments when that starts to happen are when each of us must find the hero we all can become when our backs are against the wall