The 22-year-old former marine hired by a private company was married and had a seven-month-old baby
Joe Biden may have kept his promise not to send Americans to die in Ukraine, but that hasn’t stopped it from happening. The 22-year-old former Marine Willy Cancel has become the first to die fighting in that conflict, according to what his parents have told CNN. The State Department is trying to verify it, because his body hasn’t been recovered yet.
There was another American who died in Ukraine on March 15, just as Cancel had just landed in Poland. James Whiney Hill, 67, died buying bread, one of 10 people queuing in Chernhiv, the city in northern Ukraine where he had worked as a teacher for 25 years, when Russian artillery exploded on them. Two days earlier, fellow American Brent Renaud, 51, had become the first foreign journalist to die in the conflict, when his vehicle was machine-gunned while passing a security checkpoint near Irpin. Cancel now has the dubious honor of becoming the first American fighter to die in the conflict.
The justice of the cause and the heroism of its people have made Ukraine a true magnet for romantics from all over the world who have enlisted on their own as if they were the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War. It is estimated that more than 20,000 young people from 52 countries have joined the International Legion of the Ukrainian Army, which on Thursday also lost a young British man. Cancel was married with a seven-month-old baby. At the time of the invasion he was working in a correctional facility in Tennessee and was hired for this mission by a private company of mercenaries. “He strongly believed that this shouldn’t be happening and wanted to help with all his heart,” his mother told CNN.
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