"I'm a U.S. Veteran. I Went to Ukraine to Train Civilian Volunteers to Fight."

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

mattgallagher0
@MattGallagher0
In early March, I traveled to Ukraine with friends and fellow combat vets @AdrianBonenber1 + Ben Busch to train a group of civilians on basic urban-combat tactics + survivability. Here's my chronicle of our weeks together: "Notes from Lviv" for @Esquire

esquire.com
I'm a U.S. Veteran. I Went to Ukraine to Train Civilian Volunteers to Fight.
For two weeks in March, at an abandoned chemical warehouse in Lviv, we taught civilian volunteers how to defend themselves against Russian invaders.
9:06 AM · Mar 31, 2022

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a39587164/lviv-ukraine-war/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/ZNgGU

Locals tell an old joke about the Ukrainian city of Lviv. A man emerges from a train at the railway station there, glad to have finally reached the faraway east. Across the platform, another man steps down from another train. He takes in a breath of air in the strange, exciting west.

Lviv is a gateway, a cipher, a place caught between. Refugees, aid workers, idealists, and goons gather there now because of the war, some coming, others going. It's become a haven for those fleeing the horrors to its east while a staging ground for those bound for the same. They call it the City of Lions, and it would be difficult for even the most obtuse visitor not to connect their chosen symbol with the emerging national will that's so fierce it seems to belong to a past century.

In early March, a few days after Russia's multifront invasion of Ukraine, I joined a small group traveling to Lviv to help advise and train a city defense force of local volunteers. I'd gotten on the plane there mostly thinking I was going as a journalist. Once we landed I knew that one more writer looking for a story was the last thing Ukraine needed. My friends, though, sought a third trainer. So I said I'd do it. They didn't pressure me. The moment did.

We are all American combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We went on our own volition, representing only ourselves. We brought tourniquets instead of guns, experience instead of Javelins.

*snip*

[cate94]

1. Good read.

Thanks for posting.