Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist occupants by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?

These are the words that brought an American audience to its feet in 1942 during a speech given in Chicago rallying U.S. support for a second front in Europe. These are the words delivered by a Russian lieutenant, a famous sniper credited with 309 official kills. These are the words spoken by a Ukranian woman known as “Lady Death,” Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

In June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarrosa, the code name for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Lyudmila, a history student at Kiev University, enlisted immediately at the recruiting office in Odessa, Ukraine. Even while she was completing her studies, she earned a marksman certificate and sharpshooter badge which she believed prepared her for a unique role in the upcoming defense of her homeland. Unlike most of the female recruits, she would not be funneled into the medical corps; she would contend for a position as a sniper in the Red Army’s 25th Rifle Division.

Even her laurels as a crack shot, however, didn’t earn her an actual rifle in the beginning. She was sent into battle with a single grenade until an injured comrade gave her his Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle. The rest is history. In a matter of months, she perfected her skills, tallying kill after kill, earning her the title “Lady Death.” A year later when she visited the U.S. with the intent of rallying much-needed support for a second front in Europe, Eleanor Roosevelt, who became a special friend, worried about her likeability. Here was a woman who had killed 309 Nazis, claiming [t]he only feeling I have is the great satisfaction a hunter feels who has killed a beast of prey. Would Americans find her a heroine, sympathizing with her intense desire to defend her homeland? Or would they find her a monster, picking off one soldier after another in cool, measured kill shots?

I’d never heard of Lyudmila Pavlichenko until I read Kate Quinn’s work of historical fiction, The Diamond Eye, a novel that invites us to know Lady Death both as woman and sniper. Quinn confesses to take some artistic liberties but sticks close to historical record for the most part. She argues that because Lyudmila’s personal account of her life and military career is so objectively written–the facts without much embellishment or introspection–she wanted more. And so, in her book, we meet Lyudmila the woman who lives and loves–and just happens to be one of the world’s most famous snipers.

As I read Quinn’s novel, I couldn’t help but think of those Ukranians who are desperately defending their country today. Just as Lyudmila Pavlichenko regarded the Nazis as beasts of prey intent on killing her fellow countrymen and taking her homeland, I suspect that there are many Ukranians now who face each day intent on killing those who aim to destroy their people and country. Like Eleanor Roosevelt who was concerned about the likeability of a woman dressed in drab olive with a sniper tally of 309, there may be some today who privately balk at images of ordinary Ukranian citizens, armed and taking defensive positions in their cities. They may think: Would I take up arms? Would I see the Russian soldiers who invade my city as beasts of prey? Would I defend by taking the offensive, protecting my home and my family by hunting Russian prey?

There are those like French writer Alexandre Dumas who claim that [t]here are no creatures that walk the earth, not even those animals we have labelled cowards, which will not show courage when required to defend themselves [The Vicomte de Bragelonne]. I’d like to think that I could show the courage of Lyudmila Pavlichenko and today’s Ukranians if I were required to defend myself, my family and home. As loathe as I am to take up arms–because I understand that holding a weapon means I must be prepared to use it–I’d like to think that I could if enemies were storming my home or homeland. I’d like to think that when faced with evil, I would not only defend those people and places but the ideas and principles I love.

Napoleon Bonaparte would have smirked at Eleanor Roosevelt’s concern for Lady Death’s likeability. He argued that [w]hen defending itself against another country, a nation never lacks men, but too often, soldiers. Bonaparte understood that even nations under attack would find themselves with more men and women who considered soldiering with real weapons for others–not for themselves. Soldiering is often an ugly business, and at times, those engaged in this ugly business may be regarded as unlikeable. Still, it’s hard to imagine a world without those defenders who even now are digging into the Ukranian countryside, holing up in factories and homes, taking positions in burnt-out tanks and bombed-out buildings.

In Lady Death’s longest sniper battle, she lay motionless for 3 days, camoflauged in Ukranian snow and brush, as she surveilled her Nazi sniper enemy. Ugly, cold business, indeed. It’s probably no suprise, then, that Lyudmila battled alcoholism and suffered from PTSD for much of her life. Defending one’s homeland may be necessary and noble, but it’s also extremely costly. I can only imagine the costs that Ukranian defenders are now paying and will continue to pay long after the battles are over.

The Viet Nam draft ended when I was senior in high school. Although I knew that I had no chance of being drafted as a female, I remember how often I imagined what I would do if I were drafted like so many young men my age were. I watched every Viet Nam movie, television series, and documentary I could, living vicariously through the soldiers portrayed in each, reliving battles in my dreams. I asked myself tough questions. Would I enlist? Wait to be drafted? Conscientiously object? Flee for Canada? All my musings, however, often came down to one imaginary, watershed moment in which a Viet Cong soldier rushed from the thick jungle cover straight at my platoon, ready and eager to kill. I was armed, the threat was real, and I pulled the trigger before he could fire a shot. In this imaginary moment, I acted instinctively and killed a man. For years, this moment haunted me. It schooled me with its clarity: kill or be killed.

In truth, defensive measures often become offensive actions. Lyudmila Pavelichenko understood this at the tender, but seasoned, age of 24. She understood that to protect her country, her fellow soldiers, her family and friends, she must spend hours with her eye pressed to her rifle scope. She must make the necessary calculations of distance and wind, as she lay on her belly in the snow or brush. She must clear her mind and still her breathing until she could finally take the shot. Just a single shot, but a single shot over and over again.

During one of her American speaking engagements, a reporter commented on the dowdiness of her uniform that made her look fat. She responded directly:

I wear my uniform with honor. . . . It has been covered with blood in battle. It is plain to see that with American women what is important is whether they wear silk underwear under their uniforms. What the uniform stands for, they have yet to learn.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us have yet to learn what it means to defend the people and places we love most. Blessedly, we haven’t had to defend America from foreign invaders for almost a century. But others have, and others are now living through seasons of defense. At the very least, we must not hide behind our own indifference and relative safety. At best, we must truly see that there but for the grace of God, go we.