EDTOR’S NOTE: This is a guest editorial by The Eagle-Tribune in Andover, Massachusetts.

A few among us are old enough to recall Dec. 7, 1941, and learning that Japan made a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, killing 2,043 Americans. The same people remember the ensuing war that resulted in the deaths of more than 405,000 U.S. soldiers.

More people can recall when President Lyndon Johnson announced the country would enter the Vietnam War in 1965. They watched reports of casualties on the evening news that ultimately totaled 58,220.

Still more Americans remember watching in confusion and shock as al-Qaeda terrorists barreled airplanes into New York City’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon, with another crashing to the ground in a Pennsylvania field after a passenger revolt. Nearly 3,000 people died that day.

These moments are forever stamped in our minds. Those who watched from afar know exactly what they were doing and how they found out – plus the confusion, the slow dawning, the sorrow.

Survivors of any of these events certainly must understand a fear that compares to that now overtaking a nation of 44 million people as Russian forces make their way across Ukraine at the behest of President Vladimir Putin.

At first glance, photos of mothers holding cell phones with their children wearing quilted jackets at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station look like us. That is, until you lean into their angst.

Most of the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who are making their way or have crossed into Poland, Moldova, Slovakia, Hungary or elsewhere are women, children and the elderly, because President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered men between ages 18 and 60 to stay back and fight.

Their homes are under siege by land, air and sea as they hide in subways or flock to escape, walking with rolling suitcases, quickly packing their vehicles or hitchhiking on roads leading west where they can seek safety. Some have relatives, some will reside in tents at shelters, few know what will happen next.

“Did your husband stay there?” a New York Times reporter asks a young mother in a video as she passes into Poland.

“Yes he did,” she answers.

The reporter asks his age and the woman answers that he’s 43.

“So now you are alone with the baby?” the reporter questions. “Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m afraid I will never see my husband again.” She cries more.

Vilma Sugar, 68, who fled her home in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, told The Times of Israel she was heartbroken after her 47-year-old son was stopped and ordered to go back to join the battle.

“I’m shaking,” she said after reaching Zahony, Hungary. “I can’t calm down.”

Olha Zapotochna was carrying her 3-year-old son when she spoke to the New York Times upon arriving in Poland. Her boy is very ill with cancer, she said, and she doesn’t know what she will do.

“He is not just my husband, but my life and my support,” she said. “I understand that our country needs men to fight but I need him more.”

The scenes they left behind are chaotic.

“There are lots of fights, so that’s awful,” a mother whose infant slept in a stroller said. “Just blood, ruins and all the worst that war can bring.”

What it must have been like last week when Putin’s threats became reality is incomprehensible and most of us cannot truly understand. What we can do is help. Many organizations are providing relief, among them UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, Voices of Children, Save the Children and the Red Cross, to name a few.

Equally important is to stay informed through credible news sources and know the real facts. Don’t buy into the propaganda that spreads on social media and elsewhere. Because, as NPR’s Jasmine Aguilera wrote, disinformation is one of Russia’s favorite weapons.

Putin cannot win his war.