Pink Floyd released the album The Final Cut in 1983, which contained When the Tigers Broke Free. I must have heard that song hundreds of times, and I still today, every time I hear it, my eyes well up with tears. Here it is. I suggest you read along with the lyrics for better understanding.

When the Tigers Broke Free

It was just before dawn
One miserable morning in black ‘forty four
When the forward commander
Was told to sit tight

When he asked that his men be withdrawn
And the Generals gave thanks
As the other ranks held back
The enemy tanks for a while

And the Anzio bridgehead
Was held for the price
Of a few hundred ordinary lives

And kind old King George
Sent mother a note
When he heard that father was gone

It was, I recall
In the form of a scroll
With gold leaf adorned
And I found it one day
In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away

And my eyes still grow damp to remember
His Majesty signed
With his own rubber stamp

It was dark all around
There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company Z

They were all left behind
Most of them dead
The rest of them dying
And that’s how the High Command
Took my daddy from me

As of now, British estimates put the number of Russians killed or wounded in Ukraine since February 2022 at about 500,000. Today, every day, we estimate that about 1,000 Russian soldiers are injured or killed in Ukraine. Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers a month. I am not counting Ukrainian soldiers here who are defending their country. The Russian men and boys are sent into a meatgrinder in a far-away country that has nothing to do with their own lives, security or safety, simply at the will and ego of one man.

Throughout history, rich and powerful men have sent other people’s daddies into the line of fire, into literal meatgrinders.

Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Putin!

We don’t learn and we keep doing it.

When the Tigers Broke Free!