Truth-telling. Photo by AFP/Getty. Front photo by Carol Kitman

On the day of his latest spite sacking of someone for doing his job - Chris Krebs, the cybersecurity head at the Department of Homeland Security, who had the temerity to say there's "no evidence" of voter fraud - it's especially gratifying to see another truth-teller, Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, back from the gulag and doing well, thanks. The 45-year-old National Security Council aide and Ukraine expert who blew the whistle on Trump’s "perfect" shakedown of Ukraine's president subsequently testified in impeachment hearings, for which Trump ousted him after an ugly campaign of "bullying, intimidation, and retaliation"; he even attacked Vindman's twin brother and fellow mensch Lt. Col Yevgeny Vindman, also a former national security aide, who filed a federal complaint against the Bully-In-Chief. Still, Vindman continues to speak up. He and his brother made a Veterans' Day video recounting their journey here at the age of 3 as Jewish refugees fleeing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union; re-settled by longtime non-profit HIAS, they say today, "We live in service to our nation." Yevgeny also posted a blistering response to Trump's infamous "losers and suckers" smear, complete with proudly beaming photos in uniform: "I’m a loser, my wife is a loser, my twin brother is a loser. We are a family of public servant suckers." And in an interview with The Atlantic, an unbowed Alexander insisted, "I did my duty as an American citizen and Army officer." He also memorably called Trump not exactly a Russian agent but Putin's "useful idiot." “In the Army we call this ‘free chicken,’" he said. "It just comes to you."

The brothers with their mom. Family photos by Carol Kitman