SUMMARY
In this powerful episode of Peace and Power Ukraine, host Gary Marx speaks with Greg, a former U.S. Army soldier who left his home in California to fight alongside Ukrainians following Russia’s 2022 invasion. Greg recounts his frontline experiences in Irpin, Kharkiv, and beyond — including being wounded in combat, the chaos of early battles, and the deep camaraderie he formed with Ukrainian soldiers. His story is a testament to courage, sacrifice, and shared values in the face of totalitarian aggression.
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00
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Host: Welcome to the Peace & Power Ukraine Podcast, a place to discuss all things related to Ukraine. As you know, Ukraine sits at the crossroads of modern history; it’s a place where East meets West, and freedom meets totalitarianism. Thank you for joining us during these unprecedented times as we continue to see peace negotiations unfold across the world, through negotiations in Rome and elsewhere. We always want to dig more deeply. We want to bring more light than heat, and today in particular, we want to bring a special kind of light, a different episode than we’ve ever done before. We want to tell a simple soldier’s story. We have as our guest today to do that, Greg. Greg grew up in Northern California but was born in Michigan. He served in the U.S. Army and just got back after serving for three years on the front lines in Ukraine. We want to hear Greg’s story today. Welcome, Greg.
Greg: Thank you for having me.
Host: It’s so exciting that you would be brave enough to come on and unpack your story for our audience as part of the Federal Newswire Network. We have a lot of public policy officials, leaders, diplomats, and grassroots folks from across the world who listen to this, but they don’t always have a perspective from the front lines. Tell us, where did this all begin for you? How did this journey start where you went from Northern California all the way to the front lines in Ukraine?
Arrival in Ukraine and the Initial Chaos
02:10
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Greg: As many people around the world saw the war unfolding in Ukraine on national television, it was something that I felt I should do something about. I felt like I should go and support in some way or another. So I bought a plane ticket, flew to Poland, and from Poland, I took a train into Ukraine, as did many others. It was chaotic.
Host: Was this right after the full-scale invasion? Somewhere around February 2022?
Greg: I arrived in Lviv on March 5th, 2022. Right after, as soon as I could possibly get there is when I showed up. I met incredible people, terrified obviously, unexpected circumstances at every corner.
Host: I can imagine it was a very chaotic time. Refugees are fleeing the country, a nation hanging in the balance. At that point, were the Russians on the doorsteps of Kyiv, or had they already been pushed out of the city? What were the front lines when you showed up?
Greg: Bucha and Irpin were still heavily being fought in. It hadn’t been long since the start of the invasion. It was brief, the amount of time that Russian forces were at the doorstep of Kyiv when I got there. That was a pretty hectic way of getting thrown into the middle of the war. You get jet lag, you’re not really accustomed to the environment, you don’t really understand the language whatsoever, and where you can be most supportive of the Ukrainian people. It was pretty chaotic in the beginning and died down towards the end of March when it came to Kyiv, Bucha, and Irpin.
Military Background and Motivation
04:41
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Host: For you, you had some background in the U.S. Army. You were trained to do what in the U.S. Army, and is that what you came to Ukraine to do?
Greg: I enlisted in the Army National Guard, specifically the Michigan National Guard, as an infantryman. I was in the Michigan Army National Guard for a brief amount of time before moving on. So I had the training, I had the understanding of what to do going in, and I just wanted to be supportive of the Ukrainian people. I found what Russia was doing crossing the border inhumane, I think is the nicest way of putting it.
Host: Did you have any family background connection to Ukraine? Is that something that’s part of your ethnic heritage at all, or was this just a regular red-blooded American male who said, “I’ve got to serve for such a time as this”?
Greg: I don’t really have any family ties to Ukraine or Eastern Europe that I’m aware of. I didn’t grow up having an understanding of my bloodline or heritage. But I saw something that was wrong, and I wanted to help.
Host: It really was just a righteous anger. You saw something, couldn’t stand it, and stepped forward.
Integrating into the War Effort
06:30
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Host: You showed up in Lviv, and then what’s the process? Is there a foreign legion recruiting unit? Is it even that organized, or what does one do to begin to get integrated into the fight?
Greg: This is the very beginning of the war. They were in the process of trying to create the Foreign Legion in Ukraine, and then you had the Georgian Legion there as well. There were different people standing outside the train station in Lviv recruiting people to join these legions, and there were a lot of groups coming over together for that purpose of joining the International Legion.
Host: The International Legion was very new at that point. Did it even have a unit number or insignia, or a clear commanding officer?
Greg: I don’t know. When I went in and started fighting, I didn’t actually fight under the International Legion. I went in with a group of really experienced people and started operating with those guys from the very beginning. That was short-lived before they left at the end of March. Then I spent a month in Kyiv training Ukrainian troops who had volunteered to enlist. I spent about a month there with a few other foreigners who came in after Russian forces pulled out of Bucha and Irpin and back into Belarus. Things had calmed down in Kyiv and that region, so it gave people an opportunity to brush the dust off and pick up what little they could pick up and figure out their bearings. From there, a lot of Ukrainians without any understanding of war said, “Okay, let’s fight.” As foreigners were coming together, this was still the very beginning of the war, everything is chaotic. There are a lot of confusing things happening. Things haven’t really been put into place well enough. You’re going into war, and unlike military service traditionally, you’re going into war with people you don’t know, with languages you don’t speak, and trust is an important factor of that. Finding a group of people that you can learn to trust very fast can be stressful, and something everybody at that point was looking for.
The “Zero Line” and Combat Experience
09:50
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Host: It sounds like you were doing training for a while, but when in your service did you go from training to more of a front-line scenario? Can you help our audience understand what the “Zero Line” is?
Greg: May Day of 2022, I ended up in Kharkiv. I met with a Swedish gentleman who had been planning to go support a Ukrainian unit in Kharkiv, which is the far eastern side of the country. We went there, spent about three days training Ukrainian forces, and then went straight to the Zero Line. The Zero Line is the front line. That’s where you have your troops, then Russian troops, and you’re shooting at each other. Whether it’s through indirect fire—this is when drones started becoming apparent—or small arms fire, vehicles, tanks, BMPs, armored troop transports, or technicals like a pickup truck with a machine gun. The Zero Line is not a fun place to be.
Host: How long would you serve at the front line before you rotated out? Was there a systematic understanding of rotation time?
Greg: With the group of guys I was fighting with in Kharkiv, they were pretty advanced in their knowledge. I was there for a short amount of time with a newly formed Ukrainian unit, guys that we had spent about three days training, and then went forward deployed with them to the Zero Line. From there, we spent about eight hours getting shelled in a tree line while getting ready to advance and take back a Ukrainian village. I ended up running into some of the Ukrainians I had worked with in Bucha. I ended up linking up with those guys. They were pretty efficient in their knowledge and understanding of warfare. I essentially spent the rest of 2022 with them until getting injured in November.
Injury and Recovery
12:00
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Host: What was that experience of a first injury? You obviously overcame it and continued to serve, but what was the shock of that like?
Greg: I got shot. I was wearing body armor, and fortunately, my plate was able to stop the rounds that hit me. My initial thought was that I’m going to die. I just got shot three times, and it’s very uncomfortable. You kind of come to peace with what you think is inevitable. My guys helped me to my feet. I was thinking those rounds were not stopped because it was a very short distance from where I was shot. I was thinking my plate didn’t work. My team picked me up, helped me to my feet, and we got back to our vehicle to exfill. I was throwing my equipment in the back of the truck and ended up having my foot run over, so my foot was shattered too. That took a little while to heal. I ended up getting back safely. My team got back safely. I learned later on that I was good; I didn’t really have the time to check myself. It was a matter of just getting out of that situation.
Host: You end up having to leave the front line to get your foot healed up and deal with fractured ribs. What does that look like? All the way back to Kyiv? Because the Russians still target hospitals with glide bombs and missiles. How does one safely recuperate?
Greg: I spent about two days in a Ukrainian military hospital in Kharkiv before being released. And yes, hospitals are absolutely targeted, whether civilian or not. As a matter of fact, I helped clean up the debris from the children’s hospital that was hit in Kyiv not too long ago.
Host: I had a chance to take an American delegation to that hospital in December. We saw the pictures and the devastation from that Russian attack. It is real.
Greg: I am more thinking about the Ukrainians. Look, I’m a foreigner. I have the ability to come and go as I please. Ukrainians don’t. It’s not a situation where they really have an option or a choice. They have to find some type of normalcy in war in order to continue on. It was devastating seeing a children’s hospital bombed, but it wasn’t the first one. The mindset of the people I spoke to while helping to clean up the rubble was just, “When is the next rocket going to hit us as we are trying to clean this up?”
The Tactic of Targeting Rescuers
15:35
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Host: That is a tactic, right? The rescuers go in, and then the Russians send a second wave to hurt those involved in the rescue mission.
Greg: The idea that the Russians have is to cause as much chaos and murder as many people as they can. Because at that point, who bombs a children’s hospital?
Host: I could understand if it was a military hospital; they could create a justification. But not a children’s hospital in downtown Kyiv. It’s beyond the pale.
Returning to the Front
16:35
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Host: Tell me a little bit more about your return. You recovered. Was there a moment where you thought, “I’m just going to go back to the U.S.”? Did family encourage you to do that?
Greg: I kept my injuries to myself when relaying information back stateside to friends and loved ones. It didn’t encourage me to go home for the purpose of being done. It motivated me to continue to fight and push forward more. There are incredible people whose stories can’t be told because they’re no longer here to tell them. I think one of my responsibilities, as somebody who was lucky and survived, is to help keep their names and their stories alive. Ukrainians are the type of people who, if they don’t have a shirt on their back, they’ll make you one and give it to you. I’m here because I’m lucky, not because I’m good. You don’t have to speak the same language to be able to communicate. The look that you see in people’s faces, the fear, the gratitude—that’s universal.
Host: You experienced that humanity that transcends cultural background and language barriers. You served side by side with somebody at the Zero Line, and it changed you.
Conclusion
17:35
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Host: You ended up serving a full three years until February of this year. Is that correct?
Greg: Yes. I went home for a month at the end of 2022, came back beginning of 2023. I started working with an NGO because I was still healing from injuries. Once I was good to go, I enlisted with a GUR unit and was with them for a short amount of time before going home to take a bit of a break. I had lost a lot of people I was close with. Went home for a couple of months and then returned. In 2024, I spent almost all of it fighting in Zaporizhzhia. I ended up becoming a company commander in a Ukrainian unit. Lost a lot more guys.
Host: You have given so much, more than anyone would have ever asked. For a country that is not your own, but for a shared people with a shared set of values. Thank you, Greg, for sharing your soldier’s story. We appreciate all of you for joining this special episode of Peace & Power Ukraine. We’ll see you next time.
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