Photo: Willy Cancels Family GoFundMe / Courtesy
The wife of the former US Marine, who was killed while fighting Russian invaders in Ukraine, said his life has been seen “ completely collapsed” since the death of her husband, assured the father of the dead soldier.
Willy Joseph Cancel, of 22 years old and originally from New York, left his wife Brittany, aged 26 years old, who is also a US Navy veteran, and her seven-month-old son, Anthony.
The young man accepted a paid job in March in a private army of a contracting company “to protect the innocent” in Ukraine, his father wrote on a fundraising page, GoFundMe.
On Tuesday, Brittany received “the worst call of her life”, when she was informed of the death of her husband in battle, said the victim’s father.
“Your husband fought bravely, but unfortunately he didn’t make it,” they told her in a phone call.
“Since that phone call on 26 in April, your life has has completely collapsed and now he has to figure out how to rebuild it, figure out how to raise his son without his father and financial support,” Cancel’s father wrote on the GoFundMe page, where more than 50, Dollars.
“As a family, we are trying to support them as much as possible and be there for each other, but Brittany and Anthony will need more than we can provide.”
The fundraiser hopes to raise enough money to support the ex-Marine’s wife and son.
“He will grow up without a father, a father who was brave and selfless and whose life was lost without meaning”, Cancel’s father wrote about his grandson.
“Although he will grow up knowing that his father died as a hero, we know that this will not be easy. No parent should have to bury their child, and no child should have to grow up without a parent.”
Cancel served as a volunteer firefighter in Walden, Orange County, flew to Poland on 12 March and arrived in Ukraine on 12 to fight alongside men from different countries, his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.
So far, the circumstances of the death of the American soldier have not been revealed, nor has his body been recovered.
Cancel previously served as a rifleman in the Marine Corps and was stationed at Camp Lenjeune in North Carolina, the Marine Corps reported yesterday.
He did not have deployments in war zones and was discharged for bad conduct after failing to execute a general lawful order, said Marine Corps representative Maj. Jim Stenger.
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