Patriot of the Heartland: A Ukrainian's Journey to Redemption.

The screen lit up with a bright flash, and I blinked rapidly to try to get my eyes back into focus. The image was blurry at first, but soon the picture settled, and it wasn't what I had expected. I had been watching the news for months now, trying to figure out if we were getting closer to war or if the fighting would fizzle out like it had before.

The footage on the screen showed an armored column driving through a town in eastern Ukraine. A pair of MiG-29s flew circles around the column as it moved through the streets. This was not how the Russians had invaded Crimea; they had flown brazenly over Ukrainian airspace and landed troops without warning. These images were something different, something unexpected.

I searched through the feed, looking for some explanation. It looked like there were Russian soldiers moving through occupied territory, just as our forces were trying to do.

"What is this?" I asked aloud. My mother glanced at me from across the table, but went back to her meal without responding. She had no patience for my obsession with politics these days, even though she shared my concerns about what was happening in our country. I watched for a few more minutes before she cleared her throat loudly and glared at me again, hoping that would be enough to send me elsewhere so she could get back to her dinner. I stood up from my chair and left the room quietly, heading upstairs to my room where I could watch in peace.

After a few hours of replaying various sections of the video over and over again like some sort of paranoid conspiracy theorist, it became clear that this wasn't some sort of trickery or manipulation by the press or politicians trying to drum up support for one side or another. This was a legitimate invasion by Russian forces taking place right in front of our very eyes. But why? Why would they be doing something like this after they had promised that they wouldn't? And why now? There was no election coming up that I knew of...there weren't any major world events that they needed to influence either...so why now? And why here? Of all places?

There really was only one way to find out: call in sick tomorrow and go into work early so I could talk to someone who knew what was going on. The bosses would have my head if I did it during normal business hours; they didn't care much if you called in sick, but if you came in early you risked being labeled as unprofessional or insubordinate or whatever else it is that they said when they wanted you gone but couldn't find any reason to fire you on because nobody else wanted your job either. But still...if there was something important enough happening that needed me there early then maybe it would be worth it. Maybe it would be worth losing my job over...maybe even worth getting arrested over if things got bad enough...and that thought terrified me more than anything else ever has before in my life...but there really wasn't anything else I could do at this point, was there?