WASHINGTON — A former U.S. Marine was killed fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the war with Russia, his relatives told news outlets in what’s the first known death of a U.S. citizen fighting in Ukraine.
Rebecca Cabrera told CNN her son, Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, was killed Monday while working for a military contracting company that sent him to Ukraine.
Cabrera said her son was working as a corrections officer in Tennessee and had signed up to work with the private military contractor shortly before fighting began in Ukraine in late February. She told CNN he agreed to go to Ukraine.
“He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn’t come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn’t have to be involved in it,” she said.
I heard about that yesterday. Sounds like he left behind a wife and a 7 month-old baby. That hits home.
On the less glamorous side, I’ve heard he had a bad conduct discharge from the Corps, and was working for a PMC getting paid a fair amount for being there. Makes him less of a heroic freedom fighter, and more of a mercenary or at best a security guard. Nothing against either mercenaries or security guards, but the bad conduct discharge puts him in a negative light for me.
And would that result in a bad conduct discharge? When I was in, guys getting kicked out of the Army for drug use got an “other than honorable” discharge, not a bad conduct/dishonorable. Does anyone know what those being separated for not getting the vax were getting as their discharge?
Fighting for the ukraine, no. A sad and unfortunate situation, but not my problem. Most likely the individual was paid for services rendered, aware of risk, and pursued the option. Unfortunate only for his family and friends.
Story reads he was a corrections officer until the fighting started and then he decided to PMC. I don’t think anyone here is qualified to state his true motivations for doing so. At 22 most people are motivated by all kinds of things from money to “Damn I was a Marine once…I gotta do something with myself that makes a difference.”
Also until somebody has the details regarding the nature of his discharge, we probably shouldn’t speculate.
"While in the Marines, Cancel served as a rifleman and was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He was given a bad conduct discharge after he was convicted of violating a lawful general order, Marine Corps spokesperson Maj. Jim Stenger said.
He had no war zone deployments, Stenger said. No other details on the bad conduct conviction were provided."
The movie made about him will have him as a hardened combat veteran who got the BCD because he was ordered to abandon wounded Marines behind in combat in Afghanistan, and he refused to leave them as a wave of Taliban fighters closed in. Or because he found some incriminating evidence of war crimes that went all the way up to Trump and they kicked him out to cover it up.
It was a joke (but given the current climate who knows).
I don’t care what his past was. He went. Maybe it was in his eyes his only way to make a good paycheck for what sounds like his young/new family. Maybe he had U family it ties. Maybe he’s just a bloodthirsty fool…
He wasn’t a Marine. He lost any right to claim that when he did whatever caused him to receive a BCD. Calling him one dishonors every Marine that did their duty.
I don’t discount that he went but using him as a poster child for the Corps belittles those that served honorably. Big Chicken Dinner’s aren’t given for minor infractions generally.
There’s a ton of us on this board that have earned and retained the title of a Marine. It’s a title that can absolutely be lost, just as this young man did.