This morning our children woke up to a real war. Not that Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran weren’t examples of the terrible atrocity of war, but due to the restrictions on news agencies and even the isolated, mostly barren lands of those places, we weren’t as much in the middle of it as we were going all the way back to Vietnam.

The more recent years of conflict in the Middle East have included what was referred to as embedded reporters. They were actually assigned to and traveled step by step with the troops that were fighting during the battles over Kuwait and Iraq. They were in step with the fighters chasing Hussein and Bin Laden as the miserable leaders of terrorist groups hid like scared rats in holes and caves.

Now we are facing another tyrant whose sickness we have yet to fully measure. Is he vile and stupid enough to engage in nuclear war or some version of World War III? Will the atrocities remain in Ukraine or at least Europe, or have we spent so much time accusing one another of fixing elections and other ridiculous nonsense that while we pursued political interests, real enemies have put themselves in a position to attack us somehow right in our backyard?

This is one of those times when even the oldest members of Congress — yes those who should have retired 20 years ago — should put aside their petty differences until this world crisis is solved. If we learned nothing else from COVID-19, we should have learned how easily a pandemic (whether you think it was very bad or a joke) can spread across the world.

All eyes and brains should be focused on this criminal element in Russia, and even if the only thing you feel you can do is pray, start using it against Putin. This is what a madman, a tyrant, true evil looks like. Not a guy with orange hair, a partly senile lifelong politician, or even a sad case for somebody’s grandmother is the threat to life as we know it that Putin presents.

We hope he meets a quick demise from sources either inside his own country or from an ally. He is not a person to be reasoned with. This isn’t about lines on a map being drawn to favor one politician or another. Hopefully members of Congress and even our state legislature woke up this morning with a sense of reality about how really small and unimportant they are in the big scheme. Is it possible they could actually think of someone else for once?

Peace to all and may God bring a quick and peaceful end to this awful situation. God Bless America, not just one political party.

Ron Vodenichar is president and publisher of the Butler Eagle.

Ron Vodenichar