by Tom Luongo, Tom Luongo: Well, here we are.  It’s a full blown panic. It is now obvious that President Biden lacks the mental faculties to carry on the office of the presidency.  And the nervous mice are starting to tiptoe out on the ice and do the ‘noticing in public’ they have avoided the […]

from Dr. Jane Ruby: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

When people hear the word “meth,” short for methamphetamine, most think of drugs, addiction, and felony. This white odorless stimulant is similar to cocaine and is used to boost one’s energy significantly for a long period of time. However, while it can allow you to do more, it damages the central nervous system, and in many countries, is a felony to possess it without a prescription. In the case of Aimo Koivunen, though, it was a lifesaver in more ways than one. Aimo Koivunen saw his life flash before his eyes when he and his squad were chased by Soviet troops in the Lapland Wildnerness near the Soviet/Finland border. Fleeing on skis and racing to friendly territory, they were quickly losing steam and fatigue was quickly affecting their bodies. For emergency reasons, Koivunen carried a type of methamphetamine that was given to him and the squadron for energy purposes. However, being in a position where he couldn’t take just one pill, Koivunen swallowed the whole bottle, severely overdosing and putting his life in peril in more ways than one. As his brain delved into fantasy land, his body continuously got him out of deadly situations. Aimo and His Squad Flee the Soviets Finland, like many European countries, found themselves drawn into the perils of World War II. However, after being occupied by the Germans in the 1930s, they were forced to fight on their side and used against the Soviets as part of their invasion. The war in Finland and the Soviet Union was one of the most exhausting and brutal engagements of any in the 1940s. On March 18, 1944, the Arctic mountains was knee-deep in snow as it endured frigid temperatures. The Finnish Army was now more than year four years into the war and had found themselves surrounded by the Soviets as the Allies gained the upper hand. It was only a matter of time before the Red Army finished it for good. As expected, the ambush ensued, and Finnish soldiers sought shelter and safety as they were chased down by the Red Army. However, unlike the Germans, the Finnish moved on skis as they were masters of the slopes. Aimo Koivunen was the best of the bunch and led his skiers through the snow, leaving tracks for others to follow. His hope was to cross into Finnish territory where there was shelter and protection. Koivunen, however, grew extremely fatigued and fell behind, struggling to keep up with his squad. Trailing behind, he could see the Soviets closing in on him. That’s when Koivunen remembered he had a ration of Pervitin, a type of methamphetamine designed to give him and the soldiers in his squad a burst of energy when needed. Koivunen had resisted using the pills up to that point since he wasn’t a proponent of taking any drugs. The rest of his troops also refrained from taking any. However, desperate times called for desperate measures. Koivunen, frantically needing the energy, decided he needed to take a dosage. Unfortunately, he had a hard time trying to take a single pill out when he was skiing, and his hands were filled with huge mittens, which had grown completely frozen. How was he going to take the meth? With no time to stop and figure it out, Koivunen did the unthinkable. The Overdose Kuivenen did the most dangerous thing, downing all 30 pills of meth in the bottle at once. Just like Popeye had his spinach, the meth allowed Koivunen to ski faster than anyone thought imaginable. He was able to not only catch up to his squad, but take over as leader of the pack. But as the hours passed by, Koivunen kept racing past them and had distanced himself with this superhuman energy. The pills eventually hit Koivunen brain, and he began to see blurriness and lose consciousness, yet he kept skiing at an incredibly fast pace. While his brain did one thing, his body did another. Even when he blacked out, Koivunen kept motoring through the slopes. However, not all of his skiing was straight. He went sideways, backward, and in circles.  The dizzied Koivunen had no idea where he was going. Finally, he regained consciousness the next day, but when he did, he found himself completely alone. Little did he know that his squad had caught up to him and had found him severely hallucinating. Scared for his safety and for theirs, the squad took away all his ammunition and let him be. Still under the influence, Koivunen found himself in a predicament for he had no ammunition or food. Koivunen Skis Into Danger Despite being conscious, Koivunen was still very much under the influence and experiencing hallucinations. At one point, he saw a camp and thought it was his Finnish squad. The next thing he knew, he was skiing right through the middle of a Soviet camp who didn’t realize at the time that an enemy had the guts to go right through them like that. They thought he was one of them. “What a situation!” Koivunen wrote in his memoir. “The ones in the middle of the camp, the ones I mistook as Krauts, were laying in a lean-to shelter without snowsuits and when I skied by, they would only move their winter boots a little to the side, out of my way!”  When they finally realized it was a Finnish soldier, they began chasing after him. But Koivunen was far ahead of them and still had that superhuman speed, outracing the Soviets. A day later, Koivunen found a cabin and made a fire. Not thinking straight, he accidentally set some of the cabin wood ablaze. Koivunen, still hallucinating, blacked out, and when he woke up, he realized he was surrounded by a huge fire. He just barely escaped it before it crashed down.  Koivunen would later find another cabin. However, this had a landmine attached to it, and when he stepped thorough it, an explosion caused Koivunen to fly into the air and into a nearby ditch. He had lost most of his right foot to the explosion and laid motionless for almost a week in below-zero temperatures.  Koivunen became delirious. The frozen temperatures would surely kill him, and if he wasn’t on meth, he would be lifeless and die. He also had lost some of his clothes from the explosion. But that extra energy allowed him to get up and move around, and as the meth wore off, his appetite returned. However, he had no food and was on the verge of starvation.  Koivunen turned to desperate measures, chewing on pine buds and even catching birds and shoving them raw into his mouth. He was on the verge of freezing to death when a Finnish squad found him half-naked and near death. They couldn’t carry him out in his wounded state, but promised they would return and bring him to safety. Shortly after, they did and brought him into Finnish territory. The Aftermath As Koivunen was brought to shelter, he was treated by doctors who were able to keep him alive. They found his heartbeat to be racing at 200 beats per minute. Incredibly, his weight dropped to 94 pounds and he learned he skied more than 250 miles in such a short time.  How Koivunen was still alive was a miracle. Meth among the Nazi soldiers was common as they believed it would give them an edge against their enemy. However, there were soldiers who overdosed and they all died; Koivunen was the only one who overdosed and survived. Koivunen went on to survive the war and have his own family. He lived until he was 71 years old, eventually dying in 1989. He kept the experience to himself for a long time, traumatized by the war, but eventually opened up to his son and then wrote a memoir about all he had gone through.The post How a meth-fueled rampage saved Aimo Koivunen’s life first appeared on History Defined.

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The Hermes statue was found at the Heraclea Sintica archaeological site in Bulgaria. Source: Spasiyana Sergieva/Reuters.   While digging in an ancient Roman sewer, Bulgarian archaeologists unexpectedly found a seven-foot marble statue of the Greek god Hermes. The discovery was made during ongoing excavations at the Heraclea Sintica archaeological site in southwestern Bulgaria near the Greek border.   Hermes Statue Was Intentionally Buried in Sewer Bulgarian archeologists with the Hermes statue. Source: Spasiyana Sergieva/Reuters.   Made of marble and standing nearly seven feet tall, the ancient Hermes statue was found to be in surprisingly good shape. “It’s head is preserved. It’s in very good condition. There are a few fractures on the hands,” said Dr. Lyudmil Vagalinski, who leads the team of archaeologists at Heraclea Sintica. The Hermes statue is presumably a Roman copy of an ancient Greek original.   Archaeologists believe the people of Heraclea Sintica buried the seven-foot statue after the Roman Empire officially adopted Christinaity in the 4th century. “Everything pagan was forbidden, and they joined the new ideology, but apparently, they took care of their old deities,” explained Vagalinski. The statue was carefully lowered into the sewers and covered with soil, which helped preserve it for centuries. Archaeologists are still in the process of recovering the Hermes statue. After its removal from the dirt, it will be taken to the History Museum in Petrich, Bulgaria.   The History of Heraclea Sintica Heraclea Sintica archaeological site. Source: Petrich History Museum, Bulgaria.   Heraclea Sintica—also known as Heraclea Strymonike—was an ancient Roman city located in the modern-day village of Rupite, Bulgaria. King Philip II of Macedon founded the metropolis sometime between 356 and 339 B.C.E. Heraclea Sintica was a crucial urban settlement for the duration of the Roman Empire and into the early Byzantine era. However, an earthquake destroyed much of the city’s infrastructure around 425 C.E. Within fifty years of the quake, Heraclea Sintica had been abandoned.   The ruins of Heraclea Sintica were discovered by accident in 2002, with excavations beginning in 2007. Archaeological evidence shows that, before the earthquake, the city had various public buildings and temples, including a theater and a forum. In addition to the marble Hermes statue, many well-preserved mosaics and inscriptions have been found at the Heraclea Sintica archaeological site.   Who Is the Greek God Hermes? The winged sandals of Hermes, c. 19th-century plaster cast from 1st-century B.C.E. original. Source: Archaeological Museum, Pavia, Italy.   In Greek mythology, Hermes was the great messenger to the gods and the son of Zeus and Maia. Wearing winged sandals, Hermes flew between the heavens, the earth, and the underworld to deliver messages—and to make mischief. The ancient myth goes that, as a baby, Hermes managed to steal a herd of fifty sacred cattle from his half-brother Apollo. As one of the twelve gods of Mount Olympus, Hermes appears frequently in ancient Greek, Roman, and Classical art. Hermes came to be associated with trade because of his unusual ability to quickly cross between divine and human realms. He was also considered a protector of messengers, travelers, merchants, orators, and thieves.