When my son Brandon was a cadet at Virginia Military Academy, his professor teaching Modern Military History gave a lecture on the 1980s War in Afghanistan fought by Afghan Mujahaddin against the Soviet Red Army occupation of their country. One of the pictures he showed was the one above of “three typical Mujahaddin fighters.”

Brandon raised his hand. “Yes, Cadet Wheeler,” the professor called on him. “Actually, Professor,” Brandon said, “only the man in the center with the white beard is one. The man on the right is United States Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, while the man on the left is my father.”

The professor was stunned while the rest of the class stifled laughter. “Are you quite sure of that, Cadet Wheeler?” stammered the professor. “Oh, yes sir,” Brandon replied. “I recognize my own father. That photo is framed in my father’s study. It was taken in November 1988. The Afghan Commander’s name is Moli Shakur. I have known Congressman Rohrabacher all my life.”

The cadets all applauded in appreciation. To this day, this remains one of Brandon’s fondest college memories. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #145 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The 5^th highest mountain on earth at 8,463 meters/27,765ft, Makalu is Sanskrit for “Great Black” – a name for Shiva, the Hindu god of creative destruction, as here is one of his homes.  You’re looking face on the Southeast Ridge (the right side in sun, the left side in shade), which is the primary climbing route.

You’re seeing the entire south side of Makalu in Nepal, while the north side is in Tibet with the border running along the horizon crestline.  Makalu Base Camp lies below the bottom right corner of the photo.  This was taken at over 20,000 feet on our approach from Everest and Lhotse – 12 miles away – during our Himalaya Helicopter Expedition, or “HHE.”

Everyone is understandably entranced with Everest – yet the other 8,000 meter Himalayan giants are breathtakingly magnificent in their own right, and you can see why with Makalu.  On our HHE, we go to them all! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #37 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The small European island country of Malta in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and close to the north coast of Africa is where civilization emerged from the Stone Age.

The story begins over 7,000 years ago, when a handful of Stone Age tribes in Sicily rafted 55 miles south to land on the twin islands of Gozo and Malta. They lived in caves, then huts, fished, hunted, farmed with primitive tools for they had no metal – and over a period of more than a thousand years taught themselves how to construct massive buildings of stone.

This is the Temple of Ggantija (zhee-gan-tee-zha). Built almost 6,000 years ago (around 3600 BC), it is the oldest free standing structure in the world. It is older than the pyramids in Egypt by a thousand years, older than Stonehenge by 15 centuries. The enormous stones weighing several tons were cut from the limestone bedrock with tools of stone and antler horn for they had no metal, and moved using small round-cut rocks as ball bearings for they had no wheels.

These folks figured out all by themselves how to build this and other massive stone temples to their gods and goddesses so many millennia ago. Nobody taught them. They were the first. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #166 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is real, it actually exists as you see it.  Princess Ring Islet is a small collapsed volcanic cone with a circular sunken crater.  Talk about an awesome swimming hole.  It’s several hundred yards off São Miguel Island in the Azores – and is just one of the many totally cool places we see in our exploration of  Atlantic Paradises this June.

At that time of year, the ocean around Princess Islet is filled with migrating whales and dolphins.  The Azores are one of the world’s greatest whale-watching sites.  You’d be very hard-pressed to find a cleaner, safer, more peaceful, more benign, and more astonishingly beautiful part of our planet than the Azores. And with more perfect weather.

The rest of the world and its craziness doesn’t exist here.  Don’t you owe it to yourself and the one you love to escape here for at least a short time?  Of course you do.  Just click on Atlantic Paradises to see how you can.  Once you see all the pictures, I frankly don’t see how you can resist! (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #193)

Most often, there are valid perspectives on either side of a dispute, not a simple divide between good and evil with no gray areas in between. That was not the case in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Mujahaddin you see here were fighting a morally just war against immoral atrocity. The war waged by the Afghan Mujahaddin to liberate their country from Soviet Russian conquest was a Manichean Moment.

There is another Manichean Moment taking place right now in Ukraine. Once again, Russia is attempting to subjugate an innocent country with bombs and immoral atrocity. This is good vs. evil once more. There is no gray area. Those on the side of Ukraine and Zelensky fighting for freedom are on the side of moral decency. Those on the side of Russia and Putin are not. They are on the side of irredeemable evil.

That’s why, when I see photos of Ukrainian freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured, it reminds me of those I took of Afghan freedom fighters atop Russian tanks they captured. The Mujahaddin defeated Russia a third of a century ago. The Ukrainians will defeat Russia now. Good will triumph over evil once more. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #191 Afghanistan photo ©Jack Wheeler)