American Veterans ON "Defending a Life” in Ukraine [English translation of Japanese headline]

Japanese translation published by The Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+ in print and online at https://globe.asahi.com/article/14590746

It was six days after the Russian invasion and snowing when Zachary A. Burgart, a 36-year-old Force Reconnaissance Marine veteran, arrived in Ukraine.

He entered by land from Romania, carrying cotton gauze, bandages, burn cream, and other vital medical supplies for Ukrainians under siege. Burgart traveled with two friends from a jiu-jitsu gym outside of Chicago—Yuri, a naturalized American citizen from Ukraine, and Mark Turner, a Force Reconnaissance Marine veteran and the gym’s owner.

They crossed snow-covered fields and checkpoints manned by uniformed men of the Territorial Defense Forces with AK-47s on the way to their destination: Yuri’s hometown.

When they arrived at the small town, Yuri’s mother cried, as did his sister and grandmother; Yuri hadn’t been home for eleven years. But the reunion didn’t last long.

“We put our stuff down, started sorting out the medical equipment,” Burgart recently said. “We each took a shower, and we got picked up and went straight to work.”

Civilians made camouflage nets in the school’s gymnasium, and others prepared to fight, training in basic combat.  And over the next seven days, Turner and Burgart, combat veterans with specialized experience in reconnaissance who have trained foreign troops in over dozen countries between the two, taught basic infantry skills and first aid to local military volunteers. In the afternoons and evenings, they set up food lines and coordinated houses for people to stay for American nonprofits providing aid.

Turner and Burgart have joined a growing number of American military veterans traveling to Ukraine to provide humanitarian aid, train local volunteers, and sometimes join the fight. According to The Washington Post, 4,000 Americans contacted Ukrainian officials by early March with interest in volunteering in Ukraine. The motivations are numerous, but for Burgart and others in this article, the reasons are personal: they have connections to Ukrainians and couldn’t sit idle as Russia invaded.

“When a connection was established to come to Ukraine, it really felt like there wasn’t an option to pass,” said Burgart, who plans to return, providing further aid and support. He will not fight someone else’s war, “but I will absolutely try to help and train those guys to protect themselves and their family and loved ones and their land.”

And some veterans, like Burgart, have connections to Japan. In the early 2000s, he spent five years based out of Camp Schwab in Okinawa, where his oldest son was born. In 2006, he deployed from Camp Schwab to Fallujah, from humidity to dryness, the beaches to the desert.

They are motivated by reports of civilians killed by bombs in schools and theaters, stories of cities and towns under siege. Over three million refugees have fled Ukraine, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and millions of others remained displaced in Ukraine. And the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into the conflict.

“There is nothing more honorable than defending a life,” said Matthew Parker, who is in his early 50s and has short gray hair. He is third-generation military—his grandfather was at Pearl Harbor—and served in the U.S. Army for more than two decades with tours in Iraq and Bosnia.

Parker has volunteered with the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine, a legion of foreign volunteers, because of a young Ukrainian—his driver in Iraq, a 20-something-year-old naturalized American citizen whose family later fled from Crimea to Odessa. He sent a hat for Christmas—“a Mickey Mouse hat or something,” he said—to the soldier’s young sister; she fondly slept in the hat, the young soldier told him.

“I see in all that geopolitical nonsense a little girl we sent a hat to who had to flee Crimea,” said Parker. “Now, here come the Russians again.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Is she gonna flee again? Is that family gonna be displaced again? Is the grandmother even still alive at this point? Are they living in a bunker?”

In the weeks before the Russian invasion, Parker and fellow veterans gathered duffle bags full of first aid, sending them to volunteers in Ukraine. But when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the formation of the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine on February 27th, asking for foreign combat and medical volunteers, Parker felt he couldn’t say no.

“This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules and peaceful coexistence,”  the office of President Zelensky said in a statement on February 27th. “Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals.”

Parker signed up soon after. “You can’t turn that down,” he said.  

He has a background valuable to Ukrainians defending their home: while in uniform, he instructed American and foreign troops and protected senior American military officials; later, he founded an executive protection business in South Carolina, coordinating the protection of dignitaries and executives.

“I guard people's lives. I train people to save lives," said Parker. "When I was a soldier, I was protecting my country. So, I see this as an extension of that." He continued, "That's what I do. I do protection."

Before heading to Ukraine, Parker said that he aided Ukrainian officials in vetting applicants to the legion. He helped prepare and outfit American volunteers with gear, to find funding for body armor, boots, uniforms, and other gear necessary to acquire before heading over. 

Parker said that funding has been a problem for many military and medical volunteers and that he gave his own body armor to a volunteer.

Anthony Capone, a medical executive in New York, has helped to connect sponsors to volunteers who need financial support; he has also funded individuals out of his own pocket.

Capone has created Ukrainian Democracy LLC, deploying 82 volunteers to Ukraine and receiving $150,000 in sponsorship at the time of publication. Volunteers from over three dozen countries have contacted his team.

“The sacrifices that these people that are coming over are making for a country that they've never been to, for people that they've never met, for an ideal that they hold dear,” Capone said. That ideal, he added, is freedom and democracy.