Why American veterans are dropping everything to train Ukrainians

The former U.S. Army combat medic watched the war unfold from the safety of his Maryland home, his admiration growing for Ukrainians’ courage in the face of an overwhelming Russian invasion force.

For him, previous foreign conflicts had been no more than news headlines: Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, for example, or Moscow’s role propping up the Assad regime in Syria by hammering rebel strongholds to rubble.

But this Ukraine war “burned in me” from the start, says Jason, who asked that his surname not be used. It prompted him to drop his life at home and become one of hundreds – if not thousands – of former American service members and other military volunteers from around the world to answer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for help.

“What made me know I was coming here immediately was just the sheer determination and motivation of Ukrainians,” says the veteran, who wears a hat and a hoodie with a medical green cross shoulder patch.

“I’ve seen shopkeepers, 17-year-old girls who are students, and farmers – people who have never held rifles in their lives. ... It’s inspiring,” Jason says in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where he has joined the nonprofit Sons of Liberty International (SOLI) to help train Ukrainians for the battlefield. “They’re doing it with nothing; they’re giving it their all.”

Also inspiring to Jason, as Russia launched its invasion in February, was President Zelenskyy’s now famous reply to a U.S. offer to help evacuate him to safety: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

“For that man to stay here, it just motivated me to the point where I went to the Ukrainian Embassy,” says Jason. “I thought my wife would be upset, but she said, ‘I knew you were going from the moment this happened.’ We emptied out our savings account ... but she was all right with that.”

“A very clear conflict”

The war in Ukraine has attracted U.S. military veterans and Western legionnaires like no foreign battlefield in recent memory. But what motivates midcareer professionals – often now married, with children, and with their former military lives receding into memory – to drop everything and step into the trenches of another nation’s fight?

Some are impressed by Ukrainian pluck and resolve, by surviving 11 weeks of the Russian onslaught, when analysts predicted they would be routed in three days. Others see a historic battle between good and evil, with a high-stakes clarity between right and wrong not seen for decades.

“In the past, we didn’t get involved in Ukraine because, when it was just involving Donbas, there was no way to have an effect on the outcome of the conflict. Now there is,” says Matthew VanDyke, who founded SOLI in 2014. The former documentary filmmaker was motivated at the time by his own experiences being held captive for five months in Libya while fighting with Libyan revolutionary forces in 2011.

“It’s also just a very clear conflict, with a democracy being invaded by essentially an authoritarian state, and a land grab,” says Mr. VanDyke, who wears a beard, hair combed back, and tactical military clothes. “It’s a no-brainer as far as right and wrong in this.”

Foreign fighters have played key roles on both sides of the conflict. Russia has deployed a shadowy force of guns for hire called the Wagner Group, which has close Kremlin ties and has been active from Syria to Mali and now in Ukraine. Russia has also sought recruitment of pro-Russian Syrians to fight in Ukraine.

Likewise, Mr. Zelenskyy announced in early March the formation of an International Legion to fight on behalf of Ukraine, and said 20,000 volunteers had already shown an interest. Yet so far those efforts appear ad hoc, at best.

Training the trainers

The SOLI military trainers, who aim to make a “tangible difference” on the Ukrainian battlefield, have completed one two-week session for trainers from Ukraine’s territorial defense service and are now working with the National Guard in Kyiv. Their pedigree, from the Philippines to Burma to parts of Africa, includes training – and fighting alongside – Christian forces in northern Iraq as they battled against the Islamic State.

In Ukraine, SOLI will use the model of training Ukrainian trainers as a force multiplier, especially for volunteer units that have little previous experience. A team of 10 to 12 will be here “until the war is over,” says Mr. VanDyke. “There are thousands that need training, and they are not going to get it if we don’t provide it,” he says.

Already providing key parts of the curriculum, albeit remotely, is former U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Cameron Albin, a veteran of three tours in Iraq, including the battle of Fallujah in November 2004.

Since leaving active service, Mr. Albin has nearly completed his Ph.D. in military history and started a nonprofit called the American Odysseus Sailing Foundation, which works to benefit veterans’ mental health through sailing. On their tick list is the around-the-world Ocean Globe Race with a crew of veterans, starting next year.

Married and with a 3-year-old, Mr. Albin has little spare time. But his years in the Marine Corps infantry school, his experience training Iraqis, and the historical parallels he sees with Ukraine today prompted him to find some.

“I have a lot of commitment where I am – I can’t just run off and join a hunter-killer team and start hunting Russian T-72 tanks, although that did look like a really cool prospect to a younger version of me,” says Mr. Albin, speaking from Fort Worth, Texas.

He is now tailoring the curriculum he once used to train Iraqis to the Ukraine fight.

“These are butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, so they’re going from zero to hero in a very short amount of time,” says Mr. Albin. “At least it’s the one small thing that I can do, and still be a good husband and a good dad. ... It’s not sitting back and saying, ‘Well, that’s [bad],’ and being a voyeur on CNN or YouTube.”

“Ukrainians have not given up”

Mr. Albin’s motivation stems in part from his reading of the past, and the risks of inaction.

“This is imperial aggression, 1914-to-1938-style,” says Mr. Albin. “The excuses that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is using – ‘Ethnic minorities are being mistreated, so I have to go in and annex this territory’ – all we have to do is take ‘Crimea’ and replace that with ‘Sudetenland’, and we are back in 1938.”

Clarity over Ukraine is also what prompted Erik Inbody, a veteran infantryman who spent five years in the Marine Corps, to leave his job as a welder and metal fabricator in Texas – and his 4-year-old daughter – and join SOLI in Ukraine.

“I try to live my life by a moral compass, to do the right thing. ... There was no question in my mind if I needed to be here or not,” says Mr. Inbody, who wears a Ukrainian flag patch on his baseball cap in Lviv.

Last summer, when the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, he had planned to link up with a group going there.

“But when I looked at the Afghan people, they weren’t fighting back,” says Mr. Inbody. “Anyone willing to stand up and fight for their own freedom, I will stand with you. ... And the Ukrainians have not given up. They continue to fight; that inspired me.”

Leaving his daughter has not been easy, he says. “But I cannot teach her how to do the right thing, if I am not willing to do it myself.

“I had a good job; I left it. I had a small savings account that’s now empty,” he says. “But I believe in what we are doing here. I believe in the fight. And these are normal people – normal, everyday people. They’ve asked for help with minimal expectation.”

More help has now started to come, and quickly. The U.S. House of Representatives, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote on Tuesday, approved a new $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, on top of the $13.6 billion already authorized. The Senate is expected to follow suit.

But that broad political support for Ukraine – and the strong motivations voiced by U.S. veterans aiding the country – has ironically not translated into sizable donations for American trainer groups like SOLI, which relies on individual donors.

“I look for thinkers, not trigger pullers, so I really lucked out” with the current Ukraine team, says Mr. VanDyke.

“There’s a misconception that it takes $100 million budgets to affect wars,” he says. “Small things can have a big difference, and that goes for training, supplying, and advising these types of conflicts.

“People who are donating can see that there are tangible impacts,” he adds. “We don’t do anything just for show; it’s either having a tangible impact, or it’s not worth my time.”