Woman worried if conflict continues, she will have to learn new country names

BIWABIK, MN,— Johanna Nielson considers herself up to date on current events. The 54-year-old Minnesotan has good reason to be. She is a high school social studies teacher and has seven children, five of whom serve in the US military. She worries about what conflict will mean for her family. Still, she is getting fed up with learning the names of countries she never knew existed. 

“When I was a girl, it was ‘Russia this, Soviet Union that’” said a beleaguered Nielson, while assembling a potato chip, green pea, and mayo casserole for her church potluck. “But now you are telling me that the Ukraine hasn’t been in Russia this whole time?” 

Nielson’s oldest son, Anders, joined the Navy and his second duty station was Diego Garcia. 

“So I asked my Andy ‘Where is it and when can I come visit you?’” Nielson remembered. “He just zoomed in on a map of the Indian Ocean for about 20 minutes and even still, I am not convinced that place exists! You would have had to fly over an entire ocean to get there.”

Freja Nielson, her daughter and a US Marine, recalled the experience of explaining the current conflict in Israel and Gaza. 

“So Mom nods her head that yes, ya know, she knows where Israel is and stuff but completely loses it when I tell her we have a base in Bahrain and that Andy even did training there,” Freja said, rolling her eyes, “Then she says ‘Golly, Freja, are you and your brothers just inventing places to make me look stupid?’”

“Not two days ago, I called Mom on the phone,” said Bjorn Nielson, an Air Force drone operator. “I said to Mom, I said, ‘I am going to the Seychelles for work in about 2 weeks’ and suddenly, in the background, I heard her scream “Not this bull-hockey again!’ and then the sound of glass breaking.”

Now that the school year has started in Nielson’s small town of Biwabik, she thought she would be able to distract herself temporarily. 

“I was building this week’s lesson and I saw a news article about Ukrainian families fleeing to Poland and Moldova,” Nielson said while narrowing her eyes and looking off to the side suspiciously. “I know Poland is real but I swear they must have come up with Moldova last week.” 

“These wars are very sad but you cannot just make places up out of thin air,” Nielson insisted while gesturing to a world map from 1988. “Also, I am just tired of having to learn all these funny names. I mean, this is America. Speak English!”

Gray Sea Liu is a former naval officer, current smart-ass.