Photo: YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP / Getty Images
Former US Marine Willy Joseph Cancel, of 22 years old, was being paid by a private military contracting company to fight in Ukraine when he died on Monday, his relatives to CNN.
“I wanted to go because I believed in what he was fighting in Ukraine, and I wanted to be part of that to contain him there so that he would not come here, and that maybe our American soldiers shouldn’t be involved in the war,” Cancel’s mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told the network.
Former US Marine Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, is killed fighting in Ukraine as a private security contractor from New York. He leaves behind a wife and seven-month old boy. pic.twitter.com/2kNjUhFBU0— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) April 25, 2022
Cancel flew to Poland on 12 March and arrived in Ukraine the next day to fight along with men from “all different countries,” Cabrera said.
The circumstances of Cancel’s death were not immediately clear. immediately, and the officials who notified his family of the death did not recover his body, his mother explained.
“They have not found his body” Cabrera would have said. “They are trying, the men who were with him, but either they grabbed his body or they killed him, but we would love for him to come back to us.”
Cancel, a native of Orange County, New York, reportedly signed up for the work contract earlier this year to supplement his full-time job as a police officer. correctional facilities in Tennessee.
He left behind a 7-month-old baby and a wife, according to the article.
The US State Department reportedly said it was “closely monitoring the situation” as it reiterated its recommendation that US citizens should avoid traveling to Ukraine” due to active armed conflict and Russian government security officials targeting US citizens in Ukraine.”
Cancel’s brother-in-law, Devin Tietze Jr., told CNN that the military man was “the type that fights for what is right without matter the outcome” and “he always puts everyone ahead of himself.”
“He was just a very thoughtful person,” added Cabrera , as reported. “He always kept everyone laughing and calm. He was the man who stood up when everyone else backed down.”
Cancel is not the first American to die in the conflict. James Whitney Hill, aged 67, was killed in an attack on a bread line in Chernihiv last month. He had been living in Ukraine and working as a teacher for 25 years.
Former New York Times contributor Brent Renaud of 51 years, was fatally shot in the neck by Russian troops in Irpin days before Hill’s death. The American photojournalist Juan Arredondo was also wounded in that attack.
More than 12,04 volunteers and veterans from 51 countries had signed up to join the International Legion of the Ukrainian Army for foreign fighters who wanted to defend the country from Russia’s unprovoked attack, CNN reported.
On Thursday, a UK resident was killed in Ukraine and another was missing, British officials said.
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