A former US Marine and New York native who was hired to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers against Russian invaders was killed this week.
Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, who was born in Orange County, was being paid by a private military contracting company to fight in Ukraine when he died Monday, family members told CNN.
“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,” Cancel’s mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told the network.
Willy Cancel flew to Poland on March 12 and arrived in Ukraine the next day to fight alongside men from “all different countries,” Cabrera said.
President Biden expressed his condolences to the family at a Friday press conference.
“It’s very sad,” Biden said. “He left a little baby behind.”
Former US Marine Willy Joseph Cancel was killed Monday fighting with Ukraine against invading Russian forces. CNN
Cancel was the father to a 7-month-old son.
The circumstances of Cancel’s death were not immediately clear, and his body has yet to be recovered, his mom said.
“They haven’t found his body,” Cabrera said. “They are trying, the men that were with him, but it was either grab his body or get killed, but we would love for him to come back to us.”
The US State Department said it is “closely monitoring the situation,” as it reiterated its recommendation that US citizens avoid traveling to Ukraine “due to the active armed conflict and the singling out of US citizens in Ukraine by Russian government security officials.”
Cancel had reportedly signed up for the contract work earlier this year to supplement his full-time job as a Tennessee corrections officer.
His brother-in-law, Devin Tietze Jr., told CNN that the military man was the “type to fight for what’s right regardless of the outcome” and “always put everybody ahead of himself.
“He was just a really thoughtful person,” Cabrera added. “He always kept everybody laughing and calm. He was the man that stood up when everybody else stood back.”
Cancel previously served as a rifleman in the Marines and was stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC, the Marine Corps said Friday.
Cancel leaves behind a wife and 7-month-old child. Facebook / Brittany Cancel Cancel had no war-zone deployments and was given a bad-conduct discharge after violating a lawful general order, Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Jim Stenger said.
Stenger did not provide any further details.
Cancel was not the first American to die in the conflict.
James Whitney Hill, 67, was killed in an attack on a Chernihiv bread line last month. He had been living in Ukraine and working as a teacher for 25 years, family members told The Post.
Former New York Times contributor Brent Renaud, 51, also was fatally shot in the neck by Russian troops in Irpin days before Hill’s death.
More than 20,000 volunteers and veterans from 52 nations signed up to join the Ukrainian military’s International Legion for foreign fighters who want to defend the country from Russia’s unprovoked attack, CNN reported.
On Thursday, a United Kingdom resident had been killed in Ukraine and another was missing, British officials said.
Additional reporting by Evan Simko-Bednarski and Post Wires
