August 23, 2025 • 67 mins
Join this powerful and heartfelt panel discussion on how American veterans are stepping up to support Ukraine's fight for freedom. Featuring inspiring stories from Adam Kishleski, a retired Marine and CEO of MLB Outdoors, and Irina Vashchuk, founder of Revived Soldiers Ukraine, this video highlights the incredible resilience of Ukrainian soldiers and the crucial role of U.S. veterans and charities in providing medical aid, rehabilitation, and hope. Discover how individuals and organizations are making a difference in the lives of those affected by war. Watch now to learn how you can help support this vital mission. Together, we can make an impact.
#ukraine #ukrainewar #military #charity #usveteransukraine
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This is a first very special session.
I asked Peter if he wouldmoderate it.
He said yes, there is a film,and I'm going to let him take
over, introduce this wonderfulpanel and share the experience
(00:23):
and at the end I'm going to askfor some help.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Thank you, Norbik.
So I think we'll start byhaving everyone here introduce
themselves.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
My name is Adam Kishleski.
I'm a retired Marine Sergeant,a double amputee I got wounded
in Iraq in 2005, and currentlythe CEO of MPLB Outdoors.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
Hello everybody.
I'm Irina Decipio and I'm thepresident and founder for
Revived Soldiers Ukraine, aUS-based charity that helps
Ukrainian women servicemen andI'm a former athlete.
I used to run for the Ukrainiannational team and I ended up at
USC, so I compete forUniversity of Southern
(01:07):
California and I'm All-Americanin Triton Field.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
Hello, my name is David Pesetsky.
I'm Ukrainian soldier.
I was on frontline for about ayear.
Speaker 7 (01:22):
Hi, my name is Diana Barslavska-Piasetka.
I'm David Svay for the lasteight years and currently it's
my main job.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Okay, so I want to start with you guys first Living
in Ukraine.
It's January 2022 for Russiaand the Soviets.
Did you ever in your wildestdreams think that this was
actually going to happen?
So?
Speaker 6 (01:49):
I would say that, like one month before that,
everybody like we're talkingabout this and no one wanted to
believe in this.
I would say that for sure.
But at the same time, uh, quitea lot of people are started to
(02:10):
prepare, uh, just like just incase.
So same thing I did.
I kind of bought a lot of food,uh and water, is you don't
really know?
Uh, we didn't know how warcould look, like you know.
So we were kind of prepared,but no one like could even
(02:34):
imagine how like bad it will be,and I don't think it's like
it'll be possible to preparelike fully for this so when you
so, the war begins february 2022, when what was your step from
there in terms of joining themilitary and then actually going
into battle?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
sorry, uh, dead or deaf.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
It's about my wife diana.
Uh, the first thing, uh, a lotof like families uh did.
Uh.
I also did the same.
(03:16):
I started to think how I can,like keep my wife safe and then
how I can join to the militaryand I believe, on the second day
of the war, I sent Diana.
It was also, I would say, quitea journey, because even if we
(03:36):
live in the western part ofUkraine and we are about 60
kilometers from the Polishborder, and we are about 60
kilometers from the Polishborder, and even to get there
was really really hard and scaryto send Diana because Russians
were bombing, actually bordercrossing as well, and we would
(04:02):
have like a traffic jam for likemany, many kilometers.
Basically, it means like I'msending Diana and she could
stuck there like who knows forhow long, and she ended up
staying like on this line forthree days, three days, yeah.
(04:22):
So, and like I'm sitting herewith with one small bag and our
dog and I would think how shecan eat, what she's going to
drink, is she going to be safe?
So that's the first thing thatI did, and after that I still
(04:43):
had a good job and I decided tobecome a volunteer.
I had some equipment.
It was not really militaryequipment, it was.
I bought a lot of stuff forAirsoft because I used to play
and I went and donated to theguys all my stuff.
(05:03):
We were driving across the citytrying to buy a lot of products
, a lot of food, because guyswho would join military at the
very beginning we didn't haveany kind of supplies for the
army, for the guys who joined,even not just army.
(05:27):
They just went and asked look,can I have a gun and go fighting
.
So yeah, I started to kind ofas a volunteer at first.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, I think there's one thing that's really razor
about this is that Putin thoughthe would come in and invade and
it would be over in three daysand that ukrainians would just
give rose right to the russiansoldiers.
And I think there's one thingwe learned is an incredible
resilience and grit of theukrainian people in terms of
fighting back and not givingthis guy just free will over
(06:03):
your country.
And do you think that that gritremains the same today as it
was when they first indated?
Is that still that same strongdesire to push back?
Speaker 6 (06:15):
I would say for sure, gus, if it will be not true, I
wouldn't be here a lot right now.
It's one thing.
Of course, everyone tired,that's true, that's a natural
thing.
But our people, uh, they canlike, uh, I don't.
(06:36):
We, uh, we will fight till thelast man.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I will say this for sure as well, I'm gonna going to
bring Irina in here, becausewhen we see on the news, we read
the papers and we see soldiersgetting injured and whatever.
When someone gets hurt it's notlike there's a hospital down
the street that they can becared for.
Irina is going to explain whatshe does, where they literally
(07:03):
take injured Ukrainian soldiersand they bring them to the
United States for treatment, andthere's this whole
infrastructure of support totreat these soldiers.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
So the war started in 2014.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, when they first got to Crimea, correct.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Yeah, so annexation of Crimea and east of Ukraine,
where a lot of guys went tofight, including my brother, and
we lost a lot of guys back thenand I did realize that the
Ukrainian medical system is verypoor.
Our rehabilitation system isreally as America had after
World War II, so there's none.
(07:42):
And what can we do?
Right, we're regular civilianshere in the United States and I
understand that American medicalsystem is very generous.
So, one by one, we start tofind hospital and medical
facilities to get our soldiersover here.
One by one, whatever we canfind prosthetics and whatever
(08:04):
like doctors, a Yale hospital,massachusetts General Hospital,
wilson Hospital so manyhospitals opened the door back
then since 2014.
But in 2022 we were establishedcharity.
We were like 8 years old bythen and a lot of people knew
about us and people just startto like give us money, who they
(08:27):
can donate to Revive Soldiers ofthe Sky.
They know us.
So we start to work hard.
We stopped bringing soldiers in2022.
When the war started throughoutthe country, all we did we were
fighting bulletproof vestjackets, we were fighting drones
, we were fighting generators,we were fighting cars.
All over the place US, europe,whatever we can find and I
(08:50):
really hope that all that moneythat we put into this help like
it's mostly like military helpbecause all civilians become
military, so it's no morecivilians, everybody was
fighting.
I hope some of it saves lives.
I remember I distribute onebulletproof jacket for 10 people
(09:12):
.
10 people show up for onejacket.
It was like we couldn't findanywhere.
I was bringing my suitcase twobulletproof jackets.
I knew that I can give it topeople and they will be safe.
So it's a helmet.
So it was like it was insane.
We didn't sleep, we didn't eat,we just work every single day.
(09:34):
But then you know, we realizedthat there will be insane
casualties.
So I start to email hospitalshow many soldiers you can take?
How many soldiers you can take?
The entire nation is underoccupation, not occupation, but
my city was.
My parents left with a suitcase, only Like 70 years old people,
(09:56):
entire life In a suitcase.
But Ukrainian army free my city, my parents could go back home.
A lot of people cannot deal andthey probably don't have home
anymore.
So I would say this war is thebiggest tragedy for us.
(10:21):
It's our tragedy and you knowwhat Americans step in, if not
for United States, probablywe'll be gone by now.
That's what I think.
So many American veteransemailed me asking give us a
(10:44):
letter, we will go get USpassports, we will go and fight
for you, and I did.
They want to go and defend myhome.
Yes, sure, I will do the letter.
So I'm really thankful toAmerican nation for that.
(11:08):
And then, of course, soldiers,our guys, defenders.
So many trains, trains ofpeople wounded and killed trains
.
They would not release bodiesat once to family.
They have to release one by onebody because otherwise it will
be chaos.
Release bodies at once tofamily.
They have to release one by onebody because otherwise it will
(11:29):
be chaos.
Entire country is like underchaos.
We don't understand whatbelongs to Russia and what
belongs to Ukraine, where to goand where not to go, which path
to take, the cars evenvolunteers, volunteers, would
get trapped and get imprisonedas well and entire chaos.
And now we kind of figured outthis is Russia, this is Ukraine.
(11:53):
We kick Russians out of my cityand I'm really thankful to
Ukrainian army, entire world whostepped in.
And now I have home, I can comeback home.
Everybody wants to go home,right?
So we start to work with thesoldiers again.
In May we brought a couple guysto Mass General for free After
(12:17):
May, one by one.
I think we got 100 guys, sinceit's very hard.
The war is not the same as itwas in 2014.
It's very long evacuationEvacuation could take from 12
hours to 24 hours or longer andguys losing limbs so high.
(12:38):
We have about 60,000 amputeesright now and as we spoke with
Adam, he was saying Americafought in the war for so many
years.
There's only 2,000 amputees.
Can you imagine the scale oflosses?
And prosthetic companies theydon't do discounts your tragedy.
(13:00):
They make money and we start tofundraise.
I mean, what can we do?
And we start to fundraise.
I mean, what can we do?
We start to fundraise and givethese guys a chance to live.
Actually, at this point I wantto show one of the videos.
It's this one that's one of theprosthetic centers that we work
with since 2016.
Our guys are dying on ourprosthetics in this war, like I
(13:22):
would call like new war.
Life divided in three partslife before war, which is my
sport and athletics and whateverI did before, then the war,
life with the war and now newwar.
So three lives in one.
So I would like to show thisvideo and see what this guy is
(13:46):
going through every day.
What does our day look like?
Every day, we are dancing weare dancing.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
You are metal.
Heal our wounds Because we arepeople.
We are people, titans.
I will ask you you are the onewho controls everyone there in
(14:31):
heaven.
Why don't you call us with you?
Have we not paid our debt?
We haven't paid them back theirdebt.
Do you really think it'snecessary?
We've been holding on to you.
(14:52):
Your Mona Lisa is already threehundred.
She's a secret woman, a secretwoman, monalisa taidobisa, vola,
taidobisa, a myshe, a mysheporuyemo, a myshe, a myshe
(15:20):
potantsuyemo.
Tyme salom, sly nasi raly.
¶¶, ¶¶.
We will fight again.
(16:16):
We will dance again.
We will fight with all ourwounds Because we are people.
We are people of the times,thank you.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
So practically the entire nation of guys like there
were athletes, there wereactors, there were musicians,
they all went to fight.
It's not professional fightersor soldiers, they became them,
and usually it's from 20 yearsold to 30 years old.
So practically entiregeneration is either injured or
(17:15):
killed.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Where were those recovery, those rehab facilities
?
Speaker 5 (17:19):
This one is Prosthetic and Orthotic
Associates.
They're based in Orlando,florida, and that's one of the
points that Revived Soldiers,ukraine, bring our guys to For
legs it's only legs, as you see.
Hospitals is, as I said,massachusetts General, which is
Boston, chicago, university ofIllinois Hospital and medicine,
(17:40):
we will say, and prostheticinnovations in Philadelphia.
There you go, yes.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Now, after they go through this rehab, then what
for them?
Speaker 5 (17:52):
So majority of the guys were returning back to
Ukraine to our rehabilitationcenters.
So we ended up opening in 2018,next Step, ukraine in Irpin.
That we lost with the Russianoccupation, but then we came
back, we survived and we startedto bring in the first civilians
who got hurt during theevacuation from Irpin Bucha, and
(18:15):
then soldiers and we opened upa second one.
Because we got Americans whostepped in and gave us funds.
We opened up a second rehab inLviv.
So between two of those centerswe accept 45 underserved men a
day.
And it's varieties of injuriesit's neurotrauma, it's
(18:36):
orthopedic trauma and amputees.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
You said there was a second video that you wanted to
show.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Yes, so this is one of the projects that we work on.
Of course we cannot.
You know, I have this friend.
He's a priest, he's fromChicago, that's Father
McCullough.
He said we cannot save entireworld we cannot but we can
change entire world for oneperson, and that's what we do.
(19:06):
We can say but we can changeentire world for one person and
that's what we do.
So this video will show thisincredible project that we saved
somebody Due to poor medicine.
Our doctors are amazing doctors,don't take me wrong.
They have so much experience.
It's been 11 years but we stilldon't have that medicine, that
(19:26):
technology that will help us tosave lives.
Usually, guys with abdominalorgans wounds live in Ukraine
for three months and thendoctors cannot do anything, they
just die.
They slowly die from hunger dueto lack of nutrition and IVs
and antibiotics and so on.
(19:46):
So this story is about onesoldier that was rescued from
Ukraine and we happened to findan airplane, a private aircraft,
with a billionaire on theaircraft who actually put the
soldiers with him and flew withhim from Poland to Chicago.
So this is a very short storywith him and flew with him from
(20:08):
Poland to Chicago.
So this is a very short storyand maybe you will think maybe
you know somebody who knowssomebody and who has a plane and
maybe can help us to rescue ourguys from Ukraine.
But we're still of help,they're providing us with the
ambulance and then it's going bychain so we can take a look for
this short video.
Thank you, thank you.
(22:22):
So unfortunately, in thisevacuation, in particular one,
we had to leave one soldierbehind.
He died in two days after wewere short, one week short all
right, adam, we'll, uh, talk toyou next.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I had the opportunity to sit with you at dinner
tonight and learn a lot aboutyour background.
Um, you were, you said you were15 or 16 when you decided that
maybe the military was, was apath for you, and then you would
sign the papers, you said.
And then 9-11 comes along.
And why don't you give somecolor here on what motivated you
(23:00):
to go to the military and what9-11 meant to you?
And then we'll go from there.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
I know those speakers are like really loud.
Can you guys hear me betterlike this way?
Yeah, yes, all right.
Yeah, I had wanted to be adeputy sheriff.
When I was a teenager probably14 years old started hanging out
with the Explorer Post andalways been kind of pragmatic.
Something like 70 percent ofthe sheriff's department were
(23:28):
former Marines and mostly theguys that I aspired to be like
were Marines.
I think I had about a 1.8 GPAin high school at the time.
I think I had about a 1.8 GPAin high school at the time.
So college really wasn't anoption.
My economic background, myfamily's wealth, didn't really
open up many opportunities foreducation.
So the military seemed like astrategically good plan for me.
(23:51):
And then I joined my junioryear when I was 17, right before
the 9-11 attacks, and then whenthe 9-11 attacks occurred, I'd
expedited my high schoolgraduation, so I graduated in
January 2002.
I was in boot camp by March of2002.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And then, instead of going to Afghanistan in response
to 9-11, you ended up going toIraq.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
I did.
I ended up getting sidetracked.
So I spent the first two yearsworking on the president's
(24:37):
security detail.
I wanted to join the MarineCorps in part to travel too.
I'd not really gotten theopportunity to see the world.
I thought the president'sprobably traveling to nicer
places in the Marine Force, sothat might be a good opportunity
, and instead I ended up at CampDavid in Maryland.
You didn't really get to travelmuch.
I didn't get to travel at allfor the first three years of my
Marine Corps career.
Then I thought well, if I'mgoing to Iraq or Afghanistan,
maybe at least I'll get on a MEU, a Marine Expeditionary Unit,
on a ship and at least stop at aLiboport or two on the way to
(24:57):
Iraq or Afghanistan.
Um, but they chartered a uh, uhcommercial airliner.
Um, I did get to stop inIreland for maybe about a half
hour, uh, while the refuel.
Uh, I got to drink again it'suh in Ireland airport.
So that was the one level portthat I got.
Um, pretty much straight toIraq and your experience there.
(25:19):
Yeah, iraq was a pretty dynamicplace in 2005.
I guess you guys probablyremember the Sunni triangle of
death right outside of FallujahReally pretty hot spots.
We had landed in Iraq.
I think within our first hourthe airport had gotten struck
with a rocket attack.
(25:40):
You know, nobody got hurt, butthat was kind of dictating the
op tempo right off the bat.
We had gone to Al-Karma in theFallujah area of Iraq and
because I was an infantry squadleader, I got to go snap on with
the guys who had been incountry for the six or seven
(26:01):
months leading up to us comingto replace them.
So we went out at 10 o'clock atnight and my first real night
in Iraq.
We're going after a high-valuetarget known for wearing suicide
vests.
I made it very clear, like,when you see this guy, don't try
to detain him, don't try totackle him and shoot him um, and
try to keep your distance.
(26:22):
You know, fortunately orunfortunately, however you want
to look at it we missed him byabout a half hour, um, but by
six or seven o'clock, uh, thefollowing morning, um, we got
hit with our first ied, totallydestroyed the vehicle uh, behind
me, and then pretty much everyother day we were getting into
some sort of conflict, be it aroadside bomb or vehicle-borne
(26:45):
IED, a mortar attack or somesort of direct gunfight.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Now I had asked you at the table when there's a
pattern of their attacks againstyou, how do you guys adjust to
that?
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Yeah.
So I mean, the first strategyis like, what are they doing to
exploit, you know, ourweaknesses?
So one of the things with thevehicle-borne IEDs was, you know
they were blending in with thepopulace.
You know, hiding large amountsof explosives in regular
civilian cars and then drivingthem, um, you know, right up uh
into our convoy and destroyingwhatever they could.
(27:22):
Uh, so you would do things totry to defeat that uh, you know,
however we could, so it endedup being we would drive down the
wrong side of the road and, uh,any cars that didn't
immediately get out of our ourway or getting uh get out of our
way or we're getting shot at.
Generally we're trying to hitthe engine block, but if you
know cars are still coming, youknow then you're going for the
driver.
(27:42):
So it's, you know, sad reality.
You know there's civilians outthere that don't know what's
going on, that are gettingcaught up in this violence.
But we're doing whatever we canto kind of protect our convoys.
And you know it's one of thosejust kind of unfortunate
instances where you knowviolence is escalating and
people are getting hurt as muchas we can.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
So you want to tell us about the day at the school.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah, so we had been operating out in the communities
we lived out where we werepatrolling for generally six and
a half days, and then we'd goback in to reslide for about a
day and go back out six and ahalf days, and then we'd go back
in to resupply for about a dayand go back out and uh, we
gotten into this, uh, gunfightat a school of all places.
And uh, two days later, um, oursister book in with walking up
(28:28):
to that school, there's some badguys hanging out in there, uh,
and it conducted an ambush anduh, a couple days after that we
got intel the bad guy from backin that school.
So we were kicking indoorsextracting you know somebody to
potentially be hiding behind oneof them.
And uh, instead came across ahouse for an id which hadn't
really been a threat up untilthat point, um, but it was a 97
(28:52):
pound artillery round rigged inthe door.
Um, it exploded, killed thelieutenant that was left.
Mean, I was fortunate enough tomake it out alive.
We got obviously pretty bangedup, lost my left arm, my right
leg, almost lost.
My left leg, had some abdominalinjuries, spear injuries, burn.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
And how long was the recovery before you were able to
get back in the world again?
Speaker 4 (29:16):
It took about a week to get from the battlefield back
to the United States and then Iwas inpatient, going through
surgery pretty much every otherday for the first three months
and then another eight or ninemonths of physical therapy,
occupational therapy, that sortof thing.
So it considered me recover,but even back then they were
(29:38):
kind of pumping us throughbecause they didn't know what to
do.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Uh, the recovery, I think, is still going on even
today why don't you telleveryone the story of the son of
your comrade that died that day?
Speaker 4 (29:55):
yeah, uh.
So the lieutenant who was withme is named james cappy.
Um, you guys all got your bones.
You, you ever get a moment,just you punch in his name.
We kind of james cappy.
You'll see, uh, a pulitzerwinning uh picture of a marine
being offloaded from um anairplane and uh, uh, his wife
sleeping next to a cascadeket.
(30:16):
They're two really powerfulimages.
But yeah, his son was unborn,never got a chance to meet him.
His mom unfortunately didn't dovery well following the loss of
her husband and ended upgetting into drugs and just
trying to cope.
It was really a great tragedy.
(30:36):
His son ended up being raisedby his grandparent and great
people really stepped up.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
But yeah, he just graduated high school over
Memorial Day weekend last yearand some Marines, myself
included, got to go out thereand tell him a little bit about
his dad and a guy who never hadan opportunity to meet and why
don't you tell everybody theprogression of how, when you
left the rehab and all thesurgeries and all that, and how
(31:07):
you got to where you are today,and then expand on what you're
doing today to help woundedsoldiers?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yeah.
So I was really fortunate, Iguess, in a couple of ways.
Obviously, first and foremost,I live in.
The lieutenant who was with medidn't.
So that was a pretty lifechanging event for me in a bunch
of ways, but the most profoundone was I felt like I had a
moral obligation to live my life, you know, as best I possibly
(31:37):
could in honor of him.
And if you guys know anythingabout, uh, close quarter battle
and room clearing it's justnumbers game, oh, and he, he got
killed that day and I, I madeit out just because of the
layout of the hallway and uh, uh, you, you obviously have some
serious trauma that you got todeal with and you know, both
(32:01):
physically and mentally, me andtrying to recover from that.
But all along the way I hadpeople looking out for me.
You know, just, you're lookingout for, you know, the Ukrainian
soldiers that are gettinginjured.
The same is true for me in myrecovery.
You know we're very fortunateto have, you know, kind of top
(32:21):
tier medical care and a lot ofresources that you guys didn't
have and training and stuff likethat.
They kind of helped, you know,from me not getting as injured
as I could have been to thecorpsmen who were patching me up
, to the doctors who were takingcare of me afterwards.
But, yeah, I got out of the uh,the military and um felt like I
(32:44):
needed a sense of, you know, jobsatisfaction that I had gotten.
While I was in the military, myfirst job was a defense
contractor.
Uh, it was not very rewarding.
Um paid pretty well, which wascool, uh, for a guy who lost an
arm and a leg.
Uh, you know, things that costan arm and a leg are a big
problem, oh, but I felt like Ineed to make some money.
(33:05):
Um, if you didn't laugh at thatjoke, I don't care, it's my
favorite one, I.
But uh, uh, you know, there'speople that were looking out for
me, helping me get into school,helping me, you know, get into
a good career path, and man codekind of requires you to not be
(33:25):
all consuming all the time.
So I basically startedvolunteering as nonprofits and
then found, like you know, thisis like a really uh thing I'm
getting to do to help otherpeople, but I'm getting more out
of it than ever put into it anduh, uh, to be a long story
(33:46):
short, I think I've spent like10 or 15 years working in
non-profits, uh, all across thecountry and in different realms,
mostly veteran focused andentirely um went to school and
grad school and, uh, you know,figured out that, um, I think I
can make the biggest impactworking for nonprofit, and got
(34:08):
to work with uh NPLB outdoors,um doing outdoor recreational
therapy for veterans, um,starting in December 2018.
So, uh, mplb started as ahunting and fishing organization
.
Um, it was never about huntingand fishing.
Uh, it's about getting disabledveterans connected with other
disabled veterans that arefacing similar challenges, uh,
(34:29):
in an outdoor environment, someplace that you know can be uh
feeling something that they'repassionate about.
Uh, I realized pretty quicklyhey, the activities are cool,
but, uh, you know, it hasnothing to do with you know
those activities, um, and noteverybody's interested in
hunting.
Maybe we could expand, uh thescope of what we're doing.
Um, my board is uh eager to dothat as well, so we expanded to
(34:54):
start doing a bunch of hikingand mountaineering, horseback
riding, whitewater rafting,motorsports, learning how to
drive race cars, how to flyairplane and helicopters.
And, if you can think, if youcould think about it, we've
probably done it or still do it,unless insurance told us we had
(35:14):
to stop, which is true for acouple of things, I guess.
But well, you also have theability to fly it, unless
insurance told us we had to stop, uh, which is true for a couple
of things I guess.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
But well, you also have the ability to fly.
I asked him how do you get upthere?
He goes all right flow.
Yeah, um, you want to explainthat and some of the the cool
things that you've done withsome wounded soldiers about
flying them around the countryto different places yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
So my first job, uh, was doing similar work.
We were having problems withveterans that were coming out of
the hospital to go on thesesites of activity.
So it's like you take a groupof guys who want to go fishing
in Maine and then be like, yeah,we're all about it, but they're
still going through recovery,they're going through surgeries
(35:53):
every week and dealing withinfection.
So stuff would come up all thetime.
We were spending a lot of moneyon airfare for guys that would
ultimately not end up going onthese trips.
So I found a group called theVeterans Airlift Command that
did private airfare for disabledveterans and explained my
(36:15):
mission, what I was about, who Iwas veterans, and explained my
mission, what I was, uh about,who I was, and uh, uh told him I
know for sure, on such and suchdate I'm gonna have eight
veterans that I want to bringthe main to go fishing and uh,
uh, those guys may end upswitching out at the very last
minute.
I have no idea he is going tobe on there until you know hours
before, um, but do you thinkyou could help me out?
(36:35):
And that group was awesome.
It's led by a disabled um.
Vietnam veteran got hurt in arocket attack, clawing a
helicopter, um.
But uh, he's like, yeah, we candefinitely help out.
And I got the opportunity to flyright seat with some of the
pilots, um, on these missionsand thought, uh, much like the
(36:56):
sheriff's department, hey, thisis a community of people like I
want to be involved with, I wantto be associated with.
So, um, I started taking someflying lessons and um me and
kind of got into it.
Uh, not because I really wantedto fly airplanes much as I
wanted to uh just be associatedwith those guys that, uh that
were doing that kind of missionand, um, I found that it was one
(37:19):
of those kind of challengingskills that uh rivaled.
You know, the military um, it'sa license to kill yourself for
sure.
So you, you could fake uh, yourability, uh, as much as you
want, but you know, at the endof the day, when you're the only
one flying the airplane, um,you know it's uh, uh all on you
when you're trying tell us aboutthat fight the silly um.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
She's gay, she's big.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
She's big, yeah, so one of the things our, our
nonprofit does now is, uh, takedisabled veterans up, you know,
for intro flights.
So, um, if they've never had anopportunity to get in a small
plane, we'll, we'll pick them upwherever they're they're at.
And uh, uh, one guy said whatdo you want to do?
What are your interests?
He's like I've never had aPhilly cheesesteak.
(38:03):
So I was like, well, let's goget a Philly cheesesteak in
Philly and we'll bring you backon the same day.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Which place did you go to where cheese is from?
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Go to Pat and G g knows and just knock them both
out on that same day so onething I had asked you.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
So you have a 15 year old boy I do and he has an
interest in possibly going intothe military.
And, after your experiencelosing an arm and a leg and
everything that you went through, what's the advice you give him
if he decides to go down thispath?
Speaker 4 (38:43):
So I'm very guarded in my messaging to my son
because I don't want him to feellike there's an expectation for
him to follow in my footstepsfootsteps that's been like kind
of a cautious thing from thetime he was born, for better or
(39:04):
worse, because I've spent mycareer and his entire life
working with disabled veterans.
He's been kind of exposed tothe military and to that
community of people.
He's been around a bunch ofgenerals and rock stars who
recovered against amazingadversity and I feel like he
(39:29):
wants to be part of thatcommunity.
But I also feel like15-year-olds don't really do a
very good job of evaluating riskand certainly not risk reward,
don't really do a very good jobof evaluating risk and certainly
not risk reward.
So he sees kind of the glamourside of the military without
really appreciating, I think,the risk that's associated with
it.
He sees a dad's injured but healso sees dad goes to the plaza
(39:51):
or planes, you ride themotorcycle and he's fine.
I'm never complaining to him.
So it's one of those.
We try to educate him.
You know there are risksassociated with you.
Know whatever your decision,you know may be, but you know we
want you to come to the rightdecision.
(40:12):
I think we convinced him.
Going to school first and thenjoining the military as an
officer will provide him a lotmore opportunities.
So I think he's on the samepage with that and hopefully
we'll give him a little more ofan opportunity to mature.
But it's a complicated world,you know, and when I had gotten
(40:36):
injured, my hope was maybe I didthis so that my son wouldn't
have to.
And uh, you know we see what'sgoing on with, uh, iran and with
russia and um, you know we're,uh it kind of imminent risk of
being in a war.
Uh, pretty much always right,and uh, it's not lost on me that
(41:00):
you know what happened to me orworse, to happen to my son.
It's obviously not something Iwant him to have to deal with.
Um, so I'm conflicted on, youknow, whether I want him to go
in the military.
Be immensely proud of him ifthat's something he decides to
do, but not something uh, I willever push him to do, but not
something uh, uh, I will everpush him to do, and not
something I think I could livewith myself.
(41:21):
Uh, if I had pushed him to doand something happened to him,
you know, I don't know, it wouldbe bad.
Speaker 10 (41:28):
So uh, questions.
I guess I appreciate all of youSeriously.
Um, a comment, seriously Acomment.
I'll keep it short and then aquestion for the Ukrainians.
I'm glad you guys think thatAmerica has stepped up on your
behalf.
There are a lot of us who thinkAmerica has not done nearly
enough and feel kind ofembarrassed for our country both
Biden and Trump that theyhaven't done more to actually
(41:49):
help Ukraine win this war.
There are a lot of people whofeel that way.
I just want you guys to knowthat the question is what is
wrong with the Russians?
I just want you guys to knowthat the question is what is
wrong with the Russians?
Why do the Russian soldiersride motorcycles to almost
certain depth on the front lines?
Is it true that they are press,ganged into service, that
(42:17):
they're getting paid so muchmoney that they're willing to
die because their families willbe better off and I'm not asking
about Putin, that they'rewilling to die because their
families will be better off?
And I'm not asking about Putin.
I'm asking about why are therehundreds of thousands of Russian
soldiers that are willing to dothat?
Do you understand?
Speaker 5 (42:47):
Can I say one word and then I will pass to David?
There's a big time propagandaLike it's crazy.
If you're going to watchRussian TV, sometimes I do just
to see what they think, becauseif you want to fight enemy you
have to think like they think.
You believe I'm like sometimesoh my gosh, like that's, like
(43:09):
that looks true and people whothat's the only nation Ukraine
is.
Well, yes, like I mean, likethey said that Ukraine is bad,
all of a sudden, like we're notyoung brother, like smaller
brother, Now we enemy and we badlike everybody.
I used to run for Ukrainiannational team.
We were always together withRussian national team.
(43:30):
We go to sports camp together.
We were training in Russia.
All the world championship,european championship, we were
together.
And all of a sudden we're likeare you seriously like killing
us right now?
Like that's it and that's whatTV told them to.
And they believe if, if you'regoing to see every day the same
(43:50):
information, you will believe init eventually.
So David may say something fromhim.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
Yeah, so David may say something from him.
Yeah, same thing.
But I will add if you look atthe history, russians are always
following their Tsar like aking right.
And unfortunately it's not thefirst time Russia attacked
Ukraine.
It happened over the centuriesquite a lot.
It's not the first time Russiaattacked Ukraine.
(44:17):
It happened over the centuriesquite a lot.
And for us it's not newactually.
And if SARS says go and dieover there, they'll do it for
sure.
And like Irina said, propagandaworks really great in Russia.
(44:39):
They believe whatever they'retold, even if they have a doubt.
They don't really care to digdeeper to find the truth.
They're okay where they are.
Speaker 7 (44:52):
If you don't mind, I will also add something.
You know, I saw some veryinteresting quote.
Like in Russia, when you loveRussia, it means that you are
patriot.
In Ukraine, if you love Ukraine, they call us Nazis, so it's
like.
And also about your question Idon't know if you're okay to
(45:16):
listen to tough stories.
Every family in Ukraine hasdifferent stories.
I have been talking with myneighbor.
He arrived from Chernitsy, isvery close to Russia, and he
told me that his whole family ofneighbors has been killed and
(45:36):
died the daughter.
She was 16 years old.
She was raped by Russians andthen they killed her, the house
and their mother her mother, shecan't take this.
(45:57):
So she died from heart attackbecause they were raping her
daughter and make her look likethis.
And I think the main reason whythe Russians are coming here is
because when they came toUkraine, they can do whatever
they want.
(46:18):
They can rape, kill, rape,they're taking houses, they're
destroying everything.
And when they came to Russia,they called them heroes.
Like, if you want to gain somemoney, if you want to have some
fun, you need to go to Ukraine,you need to kill people, you
need to kill people, you need tokill women, and they call their
(46:44):
heroes because they're killingNazis, because we love our
country and we live in Ukraine.
That's our main crime.
Speaker 9 (46:54):
I'll try to talk loudly.
Irene and David.
The question of Adam talked alot about community.
Yet we're past in the day thatyou all are currently in, but
how are you all dealing with acommunity of those like David
who are wounded today, trying tostay together because you need
something positive so it can bemore in your lives?
(47:16):
How is that working?
Any success you have there?
Speaker 5 (47:20):
Community.
Well, it's hard to win a war,it's hard to have a community.
But every time I drive aroundcities in Ukraine there's people
either on the crutches, on theprosthetics.
Ukraine is not ready to be acommunity like United States
(47:41):
where people come in and shakinghand and thank you for your
service and coming to Ukrainianguys right.
And once one gentleman came toone of Ukrainian soldiers.
He's younger, he was 21 at thetime, and he's oh, thank you for
your service.
Obviously the guy with no legsand they understand that it's a
(48:02):
veteran, right.
And he's like oh, no, no, no,I'm not, I'm not American, I'm
Ukrainian.
Oh, buddy, let me hug you.
So that was like much betteracceptance here In Ukraine.
Unfortunately, nobody does this.
People leave every day underbombs.
They don't sleep enough, theylike it's hard to get job or go
by.
The economy is struggling rightnow.
(48:24):
Really, there's no investmentsinto the country that are under
war and people are just tired.
Three and a half years ofsirens.
Every night you have to go tobomb shelter, like some people
it's like I don't even gonna go.
But it's hard to buildcommunity right now.
But a lot of Americans, europeancharities, comes in.
(48:45):
They do create some sort oflike welcoming home, like us.
We have Next Step, ukraine, tworehabilitation centers, our
soldiers, just to come and driveinto our rehab, just to hang
out, have a coffee with us.
They just want to be aroundpeople like they are, and we
always open our all our doorsare open.
Anybody can come in and justhang out and and talk to us,
(49:09):
talk to the team, talk tosoldiers, but it's not enough.
It's not enough.
And when?
When we're going to be in whereUnited States are, I don't know
.
It's going to take us years andyears of recovery.
I'm still driving around.
My city is like half gone.
We're slowly rebuilding WarrenBuffett.
(49:29):
I don't know where he is, buthe rebuilt half of my city,
thank you very much.
So people can come back andkindergarten and schools were
rebuilding in the first place soinfrastructure can function.
But then you never know whenit's gonna fly back to you again
like and it's gonna bedestroyed again.
So it's very hard to build ityet, but we will go for it.
(49:51):
We will try to make ourfunction.
We will come back, with yourhelp, of course like for now.
Speaker 6 (50:02):
In the big picture we don't really have these
communities, but I would saythat so many people join the
army that you can say like everyother family has a member, like
a family in the army.
So we for now we are fightingand we can't afford like really
(50:27):
kind of relax and our familiesare taking care of like soldiers
.
So we have kind of super smallcommunities like family,
basically family community fornow.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Let's think question for David.
I think you guys did talkearlier.
The average age is like 20 to30 as far as on tiers, but in
the rain I mean the first videoit looked like there was one kid
, looked like he was 40 or 50,19 my question is like how,
what's it like?
20, it looks like it's 40 or 50.
19.
My question is like how, what'sit like when you have younger
(51:03):
kids that are like trying tostep up and jump in and
volunteer, or even, on theopposite side, the older people
that are trying to come in?
I'm just curious, how do youguys handle that?
What's that dynamic like?
Speaker 6 (51:15):
So by the law you cannot sign a contract if you're
not 21.
If you're younger, you have tobring a letter that your parents
allow you to.
And I went to the UK for thetraining and I was fortunate to
(51:38):
have a lot of buddies from myown brigade there and I would
say more like not more than half, like almost all of them were
way younger than me and I waskind of old there.
It was really weird.
But we have, especially in mybrigade, so many young people.
(52:01):
Some found themselves in thejoint army in the 17th.
Unofficially, as soon as theyget 18th they can sign papers
and join.
I would say sometimes familieseven don't know they are going.
But that says a lot about ayounger generation.
(52:22):
They know, like how importantthis uh, they know who they are
and what they are protecting.
So, uh, it's uh, on one side,you know it's really hard to see
really young person who didn'teven like had a proper life.
Uh, he just like finished thiscoon.
(52:42):
Basically, you know to see youwith you in the front line.
But on the other hand, uh, yousee like really highly motivated
person who can like fight withyou and you can trust him like
he'll like carry like reallylike a lot of weight.
He can go like for a longertime, like than older people.
(53:05):
So we are always like is it aword of carry those people?
No, because they are right nowthe bow of our army.
I hope I answered your question.
Right now, the bow of our army.
I hope I answered your question.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
You have to understand all these guys, young
guys.
They born in Ukraine, not USSR.
Like I was born under USSR forsix years, so it's more than six
, it's like eight years, nine.
I was nine when we got freefrom Russia.
These old guys don't knowrussia and they don't want to
know russia, so it's they.
(53:45):
They born free.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
We can donate a lot to you guys, but what, what?
What aren't you getting that wecould help?
Speaker 5 (53:53):
us provide soldiers, okayitals, great doctors,
politicians, politicians,exactly.
You know, twice a year inWashington DC, ukrainians
gathering together and they goand lobbying bills that support
(54:15):
Ukraine.
I think it's in April and inOctober.
So a lot of Americans actuallystepping in and go with the
Ukrainian teams to itscongressmen and senators and
pushing to support Russia.
As you know, I'm sitting infront of Brian Mast who is
(54:37):
receiving prosthetic legs wherewe are and he actually donated
his prosthetic legs to one ofour soldiers.
He's sitting in front of me inApril and saying Europe has to
step in.
We're not going to do anything.
I'm like we're losingterritories, we're losing people
, we're kind of struggling.
Now he's like't, like europehas to step in, we're done, and
(55:03):
I mean like and he's, he's, he'sbeen with us, like for all
these years.
He's there, he sees all theseguys all the time, like when he
comes and service his legs.
So it's um, if we're gonna goand push and ask, some bills are
going through, and one bill isactually going through right now
.
We pushed it in April and it'sgoing through right now.
(55:23):
So Americans have a right to sayand audition and listen,
because they need your vote.
That's what I think.
It works.
It works they like, for asudden, overnight, we became an
enemy and there's I think itworks.
It works they like, for asudden, overnight, we became an
enemy, and there's, I meanconversion, like you know, like
there's so many people thatdidn't rock, or Ukraine, it's
(55:46):
mixed, you know, someone likesthis camera doesn't talk about
it, and so on, but and they andthey're like okay, let's take
him on to Ukraine.
Speaker 6 (56:01):
But they still were like, no, that's all, it's okay.
I hope it will sound like, asI'm trying to figure out how to
say it in my mind, but there'sno such thing as Ukrainian Nazis
.
Why?
Because Russian propaganda usesa lot of like swords by
Ukrainians, and why they'reusing like the word Nazis is
(56:24):
because of their history.
They have a certain thing thatwe call a Belobesia.
They are tabling down on thetwisted history of victory and
Second World War.
They are actually kind of nutson this thing.
(56:50):
Because of that, theirgovernment finds this very easy
to control and propaganda.
If we call like anyone nazis,why?
Because they like fought andthe previous war they won, and
they are not just celebrating.
It's like really like a twisteduh now, like holiday uh in
(57:15):
russia, and that's why it's soeasy to manipulate Russians.
Because of that, they'recalling us Nazis, not because we
have Nazi people in Ukraine.
If it would be Poland, theywould call them Nazis.
If it would be Estonia, theywould call them.
(57:36):
It doesn't matter.
It's just like it's comfortableto them and easy to manipulate
people that way.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Christine and I donate to both these
organizations and what I want todo is make a pitch and
everybody, do what you want.
That's up to each person.
General Gray, who has been here, cannot be here, otherwise he
(58:10):
would be.
I spoke to him Sunday night andwe have seen the work done here
for two years of Combat WoundedVeterans Challenge.
Some people here fished withsome of the vets.
(58:30):
We watched them pull milfoilfrom a lake that had an
infestation.
We had lunch and dinnerstogether.
Combat Wounded VeteransChallenge is merged into Adam's
(58:54):
organization.
He's the CEO.
That means he has to absorb andadd to the programming from the
scuba activity in Key West toother things.
So this is an absorption of twoorganizations.
(59:16):
This is not a businesstransaction.
It's a philanthropictransaction and, as we all know
who have encountered this, it'sgeared to American vets who are
amputees.
He needs absorption help.
That takes money and otherthings.
(59:41):
It's up to Adam.
He will be with us untilSaturday morning and you can all
converse with him and he willbe able to tell you.
Here's what I need for myorganization, need for my
(01:00:02):
organization.
I want to explain or comment onthe acronym.
You use four letters outdoors,but not everybody here wore a
uniform.
What do the four letters standfor?
No person left behind In the USmilitary.
(01:00:23):
That's a code.
You don't leave a comrade.
I'm getting a shiver.
So anybody who wants to helpthis organization here's the CEO
and he can tell you how to doit.
What to do, we know, and itincludes sending money from a
(01:00:47):
donor advised fund to help them.
That's a merger, it's aone-time absorption and an
expansion of that organization.
Let me go to Irina.
She's the CEO of anorganization that is taking a
(01:01:09):
vet in Ukraine and helping themedical treatment, including
bringing that person to theUnited States.
We talked earlier today.
There were three cases.
(01:01:30):
One died.
Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
The patients that are waiting for evacuation One died
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
They cannot receive the treatment they need in
Ukraine.
It's not there, it's in Chicago.
So, what does it take to getthem?
When a Ukrainian soldier iswounded and needs treatment in
(01:02:01):
the United States and it ispossible to get them here Now,
remember the institutions in theUS are doing this.
This is not.
There is no VA.
This is a war zone.
There are no services that weall take for granted that we
have.
They're not there.
So if they can move on acommercial flight, it takes
(01:02:28):
money.
But, if they can't, then ittakes a private plane.
You saw one Now.
If everybody in this room had agolf stream, we could move
everybody here.
Well, we don't have that, butif we know someone who can, if
we can assist in thetransportation, if we can
(01:02:50):
provide funds.
David is being treated at Will'sEye in Philadelphia.
I've had surgery in that houseand everything that is being
done for him there is because ofphilanthropy 100% philanthropy,
(01:03:14):
there isn't anything else.
100% philanthropic, there isn'tanything else.
So anybody who wants to helpRevive Soldiers of the Ukraine,
brenda can tell you how to do it.
If you have a golf stream, shecan tell you what we can do with
it, and if you want to write acheck or help, she will say
(01:03:37):
thank you.
And the same thing is true forAdam.
They are with us until Saturdaymorning, and it took a little
moving beyond the economics andfinance to another level.
(01:03:59):
But I'm glad you came, I'm gladI invited you.
You didn't know what you werein for.
This is a wonderful group ofpeople.
This is a wonderful group ofpeople.
(01:04:21):
So each person decides on theirown what they want to do.
Here are the people to talk to.
Thank you for coming andjoining us.
All right, we're going fishingtomorrow, so we've got a big day
.
Thanks,
This is a first very special session.
I asked Peter if he wouldmoderate it.
He said yes, there is a film,and I'm going to let him take
over, introduce this wonderfulpanel and share the experience
(00:23):
and at the end I'm going to askfor some help.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Thank you, Norbik.
So I think we'll start byhaving everyone here introduce
themselves.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
My name is Adam Kishleski.
I'm a retired Marine Sergeant,a double amputee I got wounded
in Iraq in 2005, and currentlythe CEO of MPLB Outdoors.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
Hello everybody.
I'm Irina Decipio and I'm thepresident and founder for
Revived Soldiers Ukraine, aUS-based charity that helps
Ukrainian women servicemen andI'm a former athlete.
I used to run for the Ukrainiannational team and I ended up at
USC, so I compete forUniversity of Southern
(01:07):
California and I'm All-Americanin Triton Field.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
Hello, my name is David Pesetsky.
I'm Ukrainian soldier.
I was on frontline for about ayear.
Speaker 7 (01:22):
Hi, my name is Diana Barslavska-Piasetka.
I'm David Svay for the lasteight years and currently it's
my main job.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Okay, so I want to start with you guys first Living
in Ukraine.
It's January 2022 for Russiaand the Soviets.
Did you ever in your wildestdreams think that this was
actually going to happen?
So?
Speaker 6 (01:49):
I would say that, like one month before that,
everybody like we're talkingabout this and no one wanted to
believe in this.
I would say that for sure.
But at the same time, uh, quitea lot of people are started to
(02:10):
prepare, uh, just like just incase.
So same thing I did.
I kind of bought a lot of food,uh and water, is you don't
really know?
Uh, we didn't know how warcould look, like you know.
So we were kind of prepared,but no one like could even
(02:34):
imagine how like bad it will be,and I don't think it's like
it'll be possible to preparelike fully for this so when you
so, the war begins february 2022, when what was your step from
there in terms of joining themilitary and then actually going
into battle?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
sorry, uh, dead or deaf.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
It's about my wife diana.
Uh, the first thing, uh, a lotof like families uh did.
Uh.
I also did the same.
(03:16):
I started to think how I can,like keep my wife safe and then
how I can join to the militaryand I believe, on the second day
of the war, I sent Diana.
It was also, I would say, quitea journey, because even if we
(03:36):
live in the western part ofUkraine and we are about 60
kilometers from the Polishborder, and we are about 60
kilometers from the Polishborder, and even to get there
was really really hard and scaryto send Diana because Russians
were bombing, actually bordercrossing as well, and we would
(04:02):
have like a traffic jam for likemany, many kilometers.
Basically, it means like I'msending Diana and she could
stuck there like who knows forhow long, and she ended up
staying like on this line forthree days, three days, yeah.
(04:22):
So, and like I'm sitting herewith with one small bag and our
dog and I would think how shecan eat, what she's going to
drink, is she going to be safe?
So that's the first thing thatI did, and after that I still
(04:43):
had a good job and I decided tobecome a volunteer.
I had some equipment.
It was not really militaryequipment, it was.
I bought a lot of stuff forAirsoft because I used to play
and I went and donated to theguys all my stuff.
(05:03):
We were driving across the citytrying to buy a lot of products
, a lot of food, because guyswho would join military at the
very beginning we didn't haveany kind of supplies for the
army, for the guys who joined,even not just army.
(05:27):
They just went and asked look,can I have a gun and go fighting
.
So yeah, I started to kind ofas a volunteer at first.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, I think there's one thing that's really razor
about this is that Putin thoughthe would come in and invade and
it would be over in three daysand that ukrainians would just
give rose right to the russiansoldiers.
And I think there's one thingwe learned is an incredible
resilience and grit of theukrainian people in terms of
fighting back and not givingthis guy just free will over
(06:03):
your country.
And do you think that that gritremains the same today as it
was when they first indated?
Is that still that same strongdesire to push back?
Speaker 6 (06:15):
I would say for sure, gus, if it will be not true, I
wouldn't be here a lot right now.
It's one thing.
Of course, everyone tired,that's true, that's a natural
thing.
But our people, uh, they canlike, uh, I don't.
(06:36):
We, uh, we will fight till thelast man.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I will say this for sure as well, I'm gonna going to
bring Irina in here, becausewhen we see on the news, we read
the papers and we see soldiersgetting injured and whatever.
When someone gets hurt it's notlike there's a hospital down
the street that they can becared for.
Irina is going to explain whatshe does, where they literally
(07:03):
take injured Ukrainian soldiersand they bring them to the
United States for treatment, andthere's this whole
infrastructure of support totreat these soldiers.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
So the war started in 2014.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, when they first got to Crimea, correct.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Yeah, so annexation of Crimea and east of Ukraine,
where a lot of guys went tofight, including my brother, and
we lost a lot of guys back thenand I did realize that the
Ukrainian medical system is verypoor.
Our rehabilitation system isreally as America had after
World War II, so there's none.
(07:42):
And what can we do?
Right, we're regular civilianshere in the United States and I
understand that American medicalsystem is very generous.
So, one by one, we start tofind hospital and medical
facilities to get our soldiersover here.
One by one, whatever we canfind prosthetics and whatever
(08:04):
like doctors, a Yale hospital,massachusetts General Hospital,
wilson Hospital so manyhospitals opened the door back
then since 2014.
But in 2022 we were establishedcharity.
We were like 8 years old bythen and a lot of people knew
about us and people just startto like give us money, who they
(08:27):
can donate to Revive Soldiers ofthe Sky.
They know us.
So we start to work hard.
We stopped bringing soldiers in2022.
When the war started throughoutthe country, all we did we were
fighting bulletproof vestjackets, we were fighting drones
, we were fighting generators,we were fighting cars.
All over the place US, europe,whatever we can find and I
(08:50):
really hope that all that moneythat we put into this help like
it's mostly like military helpbecause all civilians become
military, so it's no morecivilians, everybody was
fighting.
I hope some of it saves lives.
I remember I distribute onebulletproof jacket for 10 people
(09:12):
.
10 people show up for onejacket.
It was like we couldn't findanywhere.
I was bringing my suitcase twobulletproof jackets.
I knew that I can give it topeople and they will be safe.
So it's a helmet.
So it was like it was insane.
We didn't sleep, we didn't eat,we just work every single day.
(09:34):
But then you know, we realizedthat there will be insane
casualties.
So I start to email hospitalshow many soldiers you can take?
How many soldiers you can take?
The entire nation is underoccupation, not occupation, but
my city was.
My parents left with a suitcase, only Like 70 years old people,
(09:56):
entire life In a suitcase.
But Ukrainian army free my city, my parents could go back home.
A lot of people cannot deal andthey probably don't have home
anymore.
So I would say this war is thebiggest tragedy for us.
(10:21):
It's our tragedy and you knowwhat Americans step in, if not
for United States, probablywe'll be gone by now.
That's what I think.
So many American veteransemailed me asking give us a
(10:44):
letter, we will go get USpassports, we will go and fight
for you, and I did.
They want to go and defend myhome.
Yes, sure, I will do the letter.
So I'm really thankful toAmerican nation for that.
(11:08):
And then, of course, soldiers,our guys, defenders.
So many trains, trains ofpeople wounded and killed trains
.
They would not release bodiesat once to family.
They have to release one by onebody because otherwise it will
be chaos.
Release bodies at once tofamily.
They have to release one by onebody because otherwise it will
(11:29):
be chaos.
Entire country is like underchaos.
We don't understand whatbelongs to Russia and what
belongs to Ukraine, where to goand where not to go, which path
to take, the cars evenvolunteers, volunteers, would
get trapped and get imprisonedas well and entire chaos.
And now we kind of figured outthis is Russia, this is Ukraine.
(11:53):
We kick Russians out of my cityand I'm really thankful to
Ukrainian army, entire world whostepped in.
And now I have home, I can comeback home.
Everybody wants to go home,right?
So we start to work with thesoldiers again.
In May we brought a couple guysto Mass General for free After
(12:17):
May, one by one.
I think we got 100 guys, sinceit's very hard.
The war is not the same as itwas in 2014.
It's very long evacuationEvacuation could take from 12
hours to 24 hours or longer andguys losing limbs so high.
(12:38):
We have about 60,000 amputeesright now and as we spoke with
Adam, he was saying Americafought in the war for so many
years.
There's only 2,000 amputees.
Can you imagine the scale oflosses?
And prosthetic companies theydon't do discounts your tragedy.
(13:00):
They make money and we start tofundraise.
I mean, what can we do?
And we start to fundraise.
I mean, what can we do?
We start to fundraise and givethese guys a chance to live.
Actually, at this point I wantto show one of the videos.
It's this one that's one of theprosthetic centers that we work
with since 2016.
Our guys are dying on ourprosthetics in this war, like I
(13:22):
would call like new war.
Life divided in three partslife before war, which is my
sport and athletics and whateverI did before, then the war,
life with the war and now newwar.
So three lives in one.
So I would like to show thisvideo and see what this guy is
(13:46):
going through every day.
What does our day look like?
Every day, we are dancing weare dancing.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
You are metal.
Heal our wounds Because we arepeople.
We are people, titans.
I will ask you you are the onewho controls everyone there in
(14:31):
heaven.
Why don't you call us with you?
Have we not paid our debt?
We haven't paid them back theirdebt.
Do you really think it'snecessary?
We've been holding on to you.
(14:52):
Your Mona Lisa is already threehundred.
She's a secret woman, a secretwoman, monalisa taidobisa, vola,
taidobisa, a myshe, a mysheporuyemo, a myshe, a myshe
(15:20):
potantsuyemo.
Tyme salom, sly nasi raly.
¶¶, ¶¶.
We will fight again.
(16:16):
We will dance again.
We will fight with all ourwounds Because we are people.
We are people of the times,thank you.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
So practically the entire nation of guys like there
were athletes, there wereactors, there were musicians,
they all went to fight.
It's not professional fightersor soldiers, they became them,
and usually it's from 20 yearsold to 30 years old.
So practically entiregeneration is either injured or
(17:15):
killed.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Where were those recovery, those rehab facilities
?
Speaker 5 (17:19):
This one is Prosthetic and Orthotic
Associates.
They're based in Orlando,florida, and that's one of the
points that Revived Soldiers,ukraine, bring our guys to For
legs it's only legs, as you see.
Hospitals is, as I said,massachusetts General, which is
Boston, chicago, university ofIllinois Hospital and medicine,
(17:40):
we will say, and prostheticinnovations in Philadelphia.
There you go, yes.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Now, after they go through this rehab, then what
for them?
Speaker 5 (17:52):
So majority of the guys were returning back to
Ukraine to our rehabilitationcenters.
So we ended up opening in 2018,next Step, ukraine in Irpin.
That we lost with the Russianoccupation, but then we came
back, we survived and we startedto bring in the first civilians
who got hurt during theevacuation from Irpin Bucha, and
(18:15):
then soldiers and we opened upa second one.
Because we got Americans whostepped in and gave us funds.
We opened up a second rehab inLviv.
So between two of those centerswe accept 45 underserved men a
day.
And it's varieties of injuriesit's neurotrauma, it's
(18:36):
orthopedic trauma and amputees.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
You said there was a second video that you wanted to
show.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Yes, so this is one of the projects that we work on.
Of course we cannot.
You know, I have this friend.
He's a priest, he's fromChicago, that's Father
McCullough.
He said we cannot save entireworld we cannot but we can
change entire world for oneperson, and that's what we do.
(19:06):
We can say but we can changeentire world for one person and
that's what we do.
So this video will show thisincredible project that we saved
somebody Due to poor medicine.
Our doctors are amazing doctors,don't take me wrong.
They have so much experience.
It's been 11 years but we stilldon't have that medicine, that
(19:26):
technology that will help us tosave lives.
Usually, guys with abdominalorgans wounds live in Ukraine
for three months and thendoctors cannot do anything, they
just die.
They slowly die from hunger dueto lack of nutrition and IVs
and antibiotics and so on.
(19:46):
So this story is about onesoldier that was rescued from
Ukraine and we happened to findan airplane, a private aircraft,
with a billionaire on theaircraft who actually put the
soldiers with him and flew withhim from Poland to Chicago.
So this is a very short storywith him and flew with him from
(20:08):
Poland to Chicago.
So this is a very short storyand maybe you will think maybe
you know somebody who knowssomebody and who has a plane and
maybe can help us to rescue ourguys from Ukraine.
But we're still of help,they're providing us with the
ambulance and then it's going bychain so we can take a look for
this short video.
Thank you, thank you.
(22:22):
So unfortunately, in thisevacuation, in particular one,
we had to leave one soldierbehind.
He died in two days after wewere short, one week short all
right, adam, we'll, uh, talk toyou next.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I had the opportunity to sit with you at dinner
tonight and learn a lot aboutyour background.
Um, you were, you said you were15 or 16 when you decided that
maybe the military was, was apath for you, and then you would
sign the papers, you said.
And then 9-11 comes along.
And why don't you give somecolor here on what motivated you
(23:00):
to go to the military and what9-11 meant to you?
And then we'll go from there.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
I know those speakers are like really loud.
Can you guys hear me betterlike this way?
Yeah, yes, all right.
Yeah, I had wanted to be adeputy sheriff.
When I was a teenager probably14 years old started hanging out
with the Explorer Post andalways been kind of pragmatic.
Something like 70 percent ofthe sheriff's department were
(23:28):
former Marines and mostly theguys that I aspired to be like
were Marines.
I think I had about a 1.8 GPAin high school at the time.
I think I had about a 1.8 GPAin high school at the time.
So college really wasn't anoption.
My economic background, myfamily's wealth, didn't really
open up many opportunities foreducation.
So the military seemed like astrategically good plan for me.
(23:51):
And then I joined my junioryear when I was 17, right before
the 9-11 attacks, and then whenthe 9-11 attacks occurred, I'd
expedited my high schoolgraduation, so I graduated in
January 2002.
I was in boot camp by March of2002.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And then, instead of going to Afghanistan in response
to 9-11, you ended up going toIraq.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
I did.
I ended up getting sidetracked.
So I spent the first two yearsworking on the president's
(24:37):
security detail.
I wanted to join the MarineCorps in part to travel too.
I'd not really gotten theopportunity to see the world.
I thought the president'sprobably traveling to nicer
places in the Marine Force, sothat might be a good opportunity
, and instead I ended up at CampDavid in Maryland.
You didn't really get to travelmuch.
I didn't get to travel at allfor the first three years of my
Marine Corps career.
Then I thought well, if I'mgoing to Iraq or Afghanistan,
maybe at least I'll get on a MEU, a Marine Expeditionary Unit,
on a ship and at least stop at aLiboport or two on the way to
(24:57):
Iraq or Afghanistan.
Um, but they chartered a uh, uhcommercial airliner.
Um, I did get to stop inIreland for maybe about a half
hour, uh, while the refuel.
Uh, I got to drink again it'suh in Ireland airport.
So that was the one level portthat I got.
Um, pretty much straight toIraq and your experience there.
(25:19):
Yeah, iraq was a pretty dynamicplace in 2005.
I guess you guys probablyremember the Sunni triangle of
death right outside of FallujahReally pretty hot spots.
We had landed in Iraq.
I think within our first hourthe airport had gotten struck
with a rocket attack.
(25:40):
You know, nobody got hurt, butthat was kind of dictating the
op tempo right off the bat.
We had gone to Al-Karma in theFallujah area of Iraq and
because I was an infantry squadleader, I got to go snap on with
the guys who had been incountry for the six or seven
(26:01):
months leading up to us comingto replace them.
So we went out at 10 o'clock atnight and my first real night
in Iraq.
We're going after a high-valuetarget known for wearing suicide
vests.
I made it very clear, like,when you see this guy, don't try
to detain him, don't try totackle him and shoot him um, and
try to keep your distance.
(26:22):
You know, fortunately orunfortunately, however you want
to look at it we missed him byabout a half hour, um, but by
six or seven o'clock, uh, thefollowing morning, um, we got
hit with our first ied, totallydestroyed the vehicle uh, behind
me, and then pretty much everyother day we were getting into
some sort of conflict, be it aroadside bomb or vehicle-borne
(26:45):
IED, a mortar attack or somesort of direct gunfight.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Now I had asked you at the table when there's a
pattern of their attacks againstyou, how do you guys adjust to
that?
Speaker 4 (26:59):
Yeah.
So I mean, the first strategyis like, what are they doing to
exploit, you know, ourweaknesses?
So one of the things with thevehicle-borne IEDs was, you know
they were blending in with thepopulace.
You know, hiding large amountsof explosives in regular
civilian cars and then drivingthem, um, you know, right up uh
into our convoy and destroyingwhatever they could.
(27:22):
Uh, so you would do things totry to defeat that uh, you know,
however we could, so it endedup being we would drive down the
wrong side of the road and, uh,any cars that didn't
immediately get out of our ourway or getting uh get out of our
way or we're getting shot at.
Generally we're trying to hitthe engine block, but if you
know cars are still coming, youknow then you're going for the
driver.
(27:42):
So it's, you know, sad reality.
You know there's civilians outthere that don't know what's
going on, that are gettingcaught up in this violence.
But we're doing whatever we canto kind of protect our convoys.
And you know it's one of thosejust kind of unfortunate
instances where you knowviolence is escalating and
people are getting hurt as muchas we can.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
So you want to tell us about the day at the school.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah, so we had been operating out in the communities
we lived out where we werepatrolling for generally six and
a half days, and then we'd goback in to reslide for about a
day and go back out six and ahalf days, and then we'd go back
in to resupply for about a dayand go back out and uh, we
gotten into this, uh, gunfightat a school of all places.
And uh, two days later, um, oursister book in with walking up
(28:28):
to that school, there's some badguys hanging out in there, uh,
and it conducted an ambush anduh, a couple days after that we
got intel the bad guy from backin that school.
So we were kicking indoorsextracting you know somebody to
potentially be hiding behind oneof them.
And uh, instead came across ahouse for an id which hadn't
really been a threat up untilthat point, um, but it was a 97
(28:52):
pound artillery round rigged inthe door.
Um, it exploded, killed thelieutenant that was left.
Mean, I was fortunate enough tomake it out alive.
We got obviously pretty bangedup, lost my left arm, my right
leg, almost lost.
My left leg, had some abdominalinjuries, spear injuries, burn.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
And how long was the recovery before you were able to
get back in the world again?
Speaker 4 (29:16):
It took about a week to get from the battlefield back
to the United States and then Iwas inpatient, going through
surgery pretty much every otherday for the first three months
and then another eight or ninemonths of physical therapy,
occupational therapy, that sortof thing.
So it considered me recover,but even back then they were
(29:38):
kind of pumping us throughbecause they didn't know what to
do.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Uh, the recovery, I think, is still going on even
today why don't you telleveryone the story of the son of
your comrade that died that day?
Speaker 4 (29:55):
yeah, uh.
So the lieutenant who was withme is named james cappy.
Um, you guys all got your bones.
You, you ever get a moment,just you punch in his name.
We kind of james cappy.
You'll see, uh, a pulitzerwinning uh picture of a marine
being offloaded from um anairplane and uh, uh, his wife
sleeping next to a cascadeket.
(30:16):
They're two really powerfulimages.
But yeah, his son was unborn,never got a chance to meet him.
His mom unfortunately didn't dovery well following the loss of
her husband and ended upgetting into drugs and just
trying to cope.
It was really a great tragedy.
(30:36):
His son ended up being raisedby his grandparent and great
people really stepped up.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
But yeah, he just graduated high school over
Memorial Day weekend last yearand some Marines, myself
included, got to go out thereand tell him a little bit about
his dad and a guy who never hadan opportunity to meet and why
don't you tell everybody theprogression of how, when you
left the rehab and all thesurgeries and all that, and how
(31:07):
you got to where you are today,and then expand on what you're
doing today to help woundedsoldiers?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yeah.
So I was really fortunate, Iguess, in a couple of ways.
Obviously, first and foremost,I live in.
The lieutenant who was with medidn't.
So that was a pretty lifechanging event for me in a bunch
of ways, but the most profoundone was I felt like I had a
moral obligation to live my life, you know, as best I possibly
(31:37):
could in honor of him.
And if you guys know anythingabout, uh, close quarter battle
and room clearing it's justnumbers game, oh, and he, he got
killed that day and I, I madeit out just because of the
layout of the hallway and uh, uh, you, you obviously have some
serious trauma that you got todeal with and you know, both
(32:01):
physically and mentally, me andtrying to recover from that.
But all along the way I hadpeople looking out for me.
You know, just, you're lookingout for, you know, the Ukrainian
soldiers that are gettinginjured.
The same is true for me in myrecovery.
You know we're very fortunateto have, you know, kind of top
(32:21):
tier medical care and a lot ofresources that you guys didn't
have and training and stuff likethat.
They kind of helped, you know,from me not getting as injured
as I could have been to thecorpsmen who were patching me up
, to the doctors who were takingcare of me afterwards.
But, yeah, I got out of the uh,the military and um felt like I
(32:44):
needed a sense of, you know, jobsatisfaction that I had gotten.
While I was in the military, myfirst job was a defense
contractor.
Uh, it was not very rewarding.
Um paid pretty well, which wascool, uh, for a guy who lost an
arm and a leg.
Uh, you know, things that costan arm and a leg are a big
problem, oh, but I felt like Ineed to make some money.
(33:05):
Um, if you didn't laugh at thatjoke, I don't care, it's my
favorite one, I.
But uh, uh, you know, there'speople that were looking out for
me, helping me get into school,helping me, you know, get into
a good career path, and man codekind of requires you to not be
(33:25):
all consuming all the time.
So I basically startedvolunteering as nonprofits and
then found, like you know, thisis like a really uh thing I'm
getting to do to help otherpeople, but I'm getting more out
of it than ever put into it anduh, uh, to be a long story
(33:46):
short, I think I've spent like10 or 15 years working in
non-profits, uh, all across thecountry and in different realms,
mostly veteran focused andentirely um went to school and
grad school and, uh, you know,figured out that, um, I think I
can make the biggest impactworking for nonprofit, and got
(34:08):
to work with uh NPLB outdoors,um doing outdoor recreational
therapy for veterans, um,starting in December 2018.
So, uh, mplb started as ahunting and fishing organization
.
Um, it was never about huntingand fishing.
Uh, it's about getting disabledveterans connected with other
disabled veterans that arefacing similar challenges, uh,
(34:29):
in an outdoor environment, someplace that you know can be uh
feeling something that they'repassionate about.
Uh, I realized pretty quicklyhey, the activities are cool,
but, uh, you know, it hasnothing to do with you know
those activities, um, and noteverybody's interested in
hunting.
Maybe we could expand, uh thescope of what we're doing.
Um, my board is uh eager to dothat as well, so we expanded to
(34:54):
start doing a bunch of hikingand mountaineering, horseback
riding, whitewater rafting,motorsports, learning how to
drive race cars, how to flyairplane and helicopters.
And, if you can think, if youcould think about it, we've
probably done it or still do it,unless insurance told us we had
(35:14):
to stop, which is true for acouple of things, I guess.
But well, you also have theability to fly it, unless
insurance told us we had to stop, uh, which is true for a couple
of things I guess.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
But well, you also have the ability to fly.
I asked him how do you get upthere?
He goes all right flow.
Yeah, um, you want to explainthat and some of the the cool
things that you've done withsome wounded soldiers about
flying them around the countryto different places yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
So my first job, uh, was doing similar work.
We were having problems withveterans that were coming out of
the hospital to go on thesesites of activity.
So it's like you take a groupof guys who want to go fishing
in Maine and then be like, yeah,we're all about it, but they're
still going through recovery,they're going through surgeries
(35:53):
every week and dealing withinfection.
So stuff would come up all thetime.
We were spending a lot of moneyon airfare for guys that would
ultimately not end up going onthese trips.
So I found a group called theVeterans Airlift Command that
did private airfare for disabledveterans and explained my
(36:15):
mission, what I was about, who Iwas veterans, and explained my
mission, what I was, uh about,who I was, and uh, uh told him I
know for sure, on such and suchdate I'm gonna have eight
veterans that I want to bringthe main to go fishing and uh,
uh, those guys may end upswitching out at the very last
minute.
I have no idea he is going tobe on there until you know hours
before, um, but do you thinkyou could help me out?
(36:35):
And that group was awesome.
It's led by a disabled um.
Vietnam veteran got hurt in arocket attack, clawing a
helicopter, um.
But uh, he's like, yeah, we candefinitely help out.
And I got the opportunity to flyright seat with some of the
pilots, um, on these missionsand thought, uh, much like the
(36:56):
sheriff's department, hey, thisis a community of people like I
want to be involved with, I wantto be associated with.
So, um, I started taking someflying lessons and um me and
kind of got into it.
Uh, not because I really wantedto fly airplanes much as I
wanted to uh just be associatedwith those guys that, uh that
were doing that kind of missionand, um, I found that it was one
(37:19):
of those kind of challengingskills that uh rivaled.
You know, the military um, it'sa license to kill yourself for
sure.
So you, you could fake uh, yourability, uh, as much as you
want, but you know, at the endof the day, when you're the only
one flying the airplane, um,you know it's uh, uh all on you
when you're trying tell us aboutthat fight the silly um.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
She's gay, she's big.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
She's big, yeah, so one of the things our, our
nonprofit does now is, uh, takedisabled veterans up, you know,
for intro flights.
So, um, if they've never had anopportunity to get in a small
plane, we'll, we'll pick them upwherever they're they're at.
And uh, uh, one guy said whatdo you want to do?
What are your interests?
He's like I've never had aPhilly cheesesteak.
(38:03):
So I was like, well, let's goget a Philly cheesesteak in
Philly and we'll bring you backon the same day.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Which place did you go to where cheese is from?
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Go to Pat and G g knows and just knock them both
out on that same day so onething I had asked you.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
So you have a 15 year old boy I do and he has an
interest in possibly going intothe military.
And, after your experiencelosing an arm and a leg and
everything that you went through, what's the advice you give him
if he decides to go down thispath?
Speaker 4 (38:43):
So I'm very guarded in my messaging to my son
because I don't want him to feellike there's an expectation for
him to follow in my footstepsfootsteps that's been like kind
of a cautious thing from thetime he was born, for better or
(39:04):
worse, because I've spent mycareer and his entire life
working with disabled veterans.
He's been kind of exposed tothe military and to that
community of people.
He's been around a bunch ofgenerals and rock stars who
recovered against amazingadversity and I feel like he
(39:29):
wants to be part of thatcommunity.
But I also feel like15-year-olds don't really do a
very good job of evaluating riskand certainly not risk reward,
don't really do a very good jobof evaluating risk and certainly
not risk reward.
So he sees kind of the glamourside of the military without
really appreciating, I think,the risk that's associated with
it.
He sees a dad's injured but healso sees dad goes to the plaza
(39:51):
or planes, you ride themotorcycle and he's fine.
I'm never complaining to him.
So it's one of those.
We try to educate him.
You know there are risksassociated with you.
Know whatever your decision,you know may be, but you know we
want you to come to the rightdecision.
(40:12):
I think we convinced him.
Going to school first and thenjoining the military as an
officer will provide him a lotmore opportunities.
So I think he's on the samepage with that and hopefully
we'll give him a little more ofan opportunity to mature.
But it's a complicated world,you know, and when I had gotten
(40:36):
injured, my hope was maybe I didthis so that my son wouldn't
have to.
And uh, you know we see what'sgoing on with, uh, iran and with
russia and um, you know we're,uh it kind of imminent risk of
being in a war.
Uh, pretty much always right,and uh, it's not lost on me that
(41:00):
you know what happened to me orworse, to happen to my son.
It's obviously not something Iwant him to have to deal with.
Um, so I'm conflicted on, youknow, whether I want him to go
in the military.
Be immensely proud of him ifthat's something he decides to
do, but not something uh, I willever push him to do, but not
something uh, uh, I will everpush him to do, and not
something I think I could livewith myself.
(41:21):
Uh, if I had pushed him to doand something happened to him,
you know, I don't know, it wouldbe bad.
Speaker 10 (41:28):
So uh, questions.
I guess I appreciate all of youSeriously.
Um, a comment, seriously Acomment.
I'll keep it short and then aquestion for the Ukrainians.
I'm glad you guys think thatAmerica has stepped up on your
behalf.
There are a lot of us who thinkAmerica has not done nearly
enough and feel kind ofembarrassed for our country both
Biden and Trump that theyhaven't done more to actually
(41:49):
help Ukraine win this war.
There are a lot of people whofeel that way.
I just want you guys to knowthat the question is what is
wrong with the Russians?
I just want you guys to knowthat the question is what is
wrong with the Russians?
Why do the Russian soldiersride motorcycles to almost
certain depth on the front lines?
Is it true that they are press,ganged into service, that
(42:17):
they're getting paid so muchmoney that they're willing to
die because their families willbe better off and I'm not asking
about Putin, that they'rewilling to die because their
families will be better off?
And I'm not asking about Putin.
I'm asking about why are therehundreds of thousands of Russian
soldiers that are willing to dothat?
Do you understand?
Speaker 5 (42:47):
Can I say one word and then I will pass to David?
There's a big time propagandaLike it's crazy.
If you're going to watchRussian TV, sometimes I do just
to see what they think, becauseif you want to fight enemy you
have to think like they think.
You believe I'm like sometimesoh my gosh, like that's, like
(43:09):
that looks true and people whothat's the only nation Ukraine
is.
Well, yes, like I mean, likethey said that Ukraine is bad,
all of a sudden, like we're notyoung brother, like smaller
brother, Now we enemy and we badlike everybody.
I used to run for Ukrainiannational team.
We were always together withRussian national team.
(43:30):
We go to sports camp together.
We were training in Russia.
All the world championship,european championship, we were
together.
And all of a sudden we're likeare you seriously like killing
us right now?
Like that's it and that's whatTV told them to.
And they believe if, if you'regoing to see every day the same
(43:50):
information, you will believe init eventually.
So David may say something fromhim.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
Yeah, so David may say something from him.
Yeah, same thing.
But I will add if you look atthe history, russians are always
following their Tsar like aking right.
And unfortunately it's not thefirst time Russia attacked
Ukraine.
It happened over the centuriesquite a lot.
It's not the first time Russiaattacked Ukraine.
(44:17):
It happened over the centuriesquite a lot.
And for us it's not newactually.
And if SARS says go and dieover there, they'll do it for
sure.
And like Irina said, propagandaworks really great in Russia.
(44:39):
They believe whatever they'retold, even if they have a doubt.
They don't really care to digdeeper to find the truth.
They're okay where they are.
Speaker 7 (44:52):
If you don't mind, I will also add something.
You know, I saw some veryinteresting quote.
Like in Russia, when you loveRussia, it means that you are
patriot.
In Ukraine, if you love Ukraine, they call us Nazis, so it's
like.
And also about your question Idon't know if you're okay to
(45:16):
listen to tough stories.
Every family in Ukraine hasdifferent stories.
I have been talking with myneighbor.
He arrived from Chernitsy, isvery close to Russia, and he
told me that his whole family ofneighbors has been killed and
(45:36):
died the daughter.
She was 16 years old.
She was raped by Russians andthen they killed her, the house
and their mother her mother, shecan't take this.
(45:57):
So she died from heart attackbecause they were raping her
daughter and make her look likethis.
And I think the main reason whythe Russians are coming here is
because when they came toUkraine, they can do whatever
they want.
(46:18):
They can rape, kill, rape,they're taking houses, they're
destroying everything.
And when they came to Russia,they called them heroes.
Like, if you want to gain somemoney, if you want to have some
fun, you need to go to Ukraine,you need to kill people, you
need to kill people, you need tokill women, and they call their
(46:44):
heroes because they're killingNazis, because we love our
country and we live in Ukraine.
That's our main crime.
Speaker 9 (46:54):
I'll try to talk loudly.
Irene and David.
The question of Adam talked alot about community.
Yet we're past in the day thatyou all are currently in, but
how are you all dealing with acommunity of those like David
who are wounded today, trying tostay together because you need
something positive so it can bemore in your lives?
(47:16):
How is that working?
Any success you have there?
Speaker 5 (47:20):
Community.
Well, it's hard to win a war,it's hard to have a community.
But every time I drive aroundcities in Ukraine there's people
either on the crutches, on theprosthetics.
Ukraine is not ready to be acommunity like United States
(47:41):
where people come in and shakinghand and thank you for your
service and coming to Ukrainianguys right.
And once one gentleman came toone of Ukrainian soldiers.
He's younger, he was 21 at thetime, and he's oh, thank you for
your service.
Obviously the guy with no legsand they understand that it's a
(48:02):
veteran, right.
And he's like oh, no, no, no,I'm not, I'm not American, I'm
Ukrainian.
Oh, buddy, let me hug you.
So that was like much betteracceptance here In Ukraine.
Unfortunately, nobody does this.
People leave every day underbombs.
They don't sleep enough, theylike it's hard to get job or go
by.
The economy is struggling rightnow.
(48:24):
Really, there's no investmentsinto the country that are under
war and people are just tired.
Three and a half years ofsirens.
Every night you have to go tobomb shelter, like some people
it's like I don't even gonna go.
But it's hard to buildcommunity right now.
But a lot of Americans, europeancharities, comes in.
(48:45):
They do create some sort oflike welcoming home, like us.
We have Next Step, ukraine, tworehabilitation centers, our
soldiers, just to come and driveinto our rehab, just to hang
out, have a coffee with us.
They just want to be aroundpeople like they are, and we
always open our all our doorsare open.
Anybody can come in and justhang out and and talk to us,
(49:09):
talk to the team, talk tosoldiers, but it's not enough.
It's not enough.
And when?
When we're going to be in whereUnited States are, I don't know
.
It's going to take us years andyears of recovery.
I'm still driving around.
My city is like half gone.
We're slowly rebuilding WarrenBuffett.
(49:29):
I don't know where he is, buthe rebuilt half of my city,
thank you very much.
So people can come back andkindergarten and schools were
rebuilding in the first place soinfrastructure can function.
But then you never know whenit's gonna fly back to you again
like and it's gonna bedestroyed again.
So it's very hard to build ityet, but we will go for it.
(49:51):
We will try to make ourfunction.
We will come back, with yourhelp, of course like for now.
Speaker 6 (50:02):
In the big picture we don't really have these
communities, but I would saythat so many people join the
army that you can say like everyother family has a member, like
a family in the army.
So we for now we are fightingand we can't afford like really
(50:27):
kind of relax and our familiesare taking care of like soldiers
.
So we have kind of super smallcommunities like family,
basically family community fornow.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Let's think question for David.
I think you guys did talkearlier.
The average age is like 20 to30 as far as on tiers, but in
the rain I mean the first videoit looked like there was one kid
, looked like he was 40 or 50,19 my question is like how,
what's it like?
20, it looks like it's 40 or 50.
19.
My question is like how, what'sit like when you have younger
(51:03):
kids that are like trying tostep up and jump in and
volunteer, or even, on theopposite side, the older people
that are trying to come in?
I'm just curious, how do youguys handle that?
What's that dynamic like?
Speaker 6 (51:15):
So by the law you cannot sign a contract if you're
not 21.
If you're younger, you have tobring a letter that your parents
allow you to.
And I went to the UK for thetraining and I was fortunate to
(51:38):
have a lot of buddies from myown brigade there and I would
say more like not more than half, like almost all of them were
way younger than me and I waskind of old there.
It was really weird.
But we have, especially in mybrigade, so many young people.
(52:01):
Some found themselves in thejoint army in the 17th.
Unofficially, as soon as theyget 18th they can sign papers
and join.
I would say sometimes familieseven don't know they are going.
But that says a lot about ayounger generation.
(52:22):
They know, like how importantthis uh, they know who they are
and what they are protecting.
So, uh, it's uh, on one side,you know it's really hard to see
really young person who didn'teven like had a proper life.
Uh, he just like finished thiscoon.
(52:42):
Basically, you know to see youwith you in the front line.
But on the other hand, uh, yousee like really highly motivated
person who can like fight withyou and you can trust him like
he'll like carry like reallylike a lot of weight.
He can go like for a longertime, like than older people.
(53:05):
So we are always like is it aword of carry those people?
No, because they are right nowthe bow of our army.
I hope I answered your question.
Right now, the bow of our army.
I hope I answered your question.
Speaker 5 (53:22):
You have to understand all these guys, young
guys.
They born in Ukraine, not USSR.
Like I was born under USSR forsix years, so it's more than six
, it's like eight years, nine.
I was nine when we got freefrom Russia.
These old guys don't knowrussia and they don't want to
know russia, so it's they.
(53:45):
They born free.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
We can donate a lot to you guys, but what, what?
What aren't you getting that wecould help?
Speaker 5 (53:53):
us provide soldiers, okayitals, great doctors,
politicians, politicians,exactly.
You know, twice a year inWashington DC, ukrainians
gathering together and they goand lobbying bills that support
(54:15):
Ukraine.
I think it's in April and inOctober.
So a lot of Americans actuallystepping in and go with the
Ukrainian teams to itscongressmen and senators and
pushing to support Russia.
As you know, I'm sitting infront of Brian Mast who is
(54:37):
receiving prosthetic legs wherewe are and he actually donated
his prosthetic legs to one ofour soldiers.
He's sitting in front of me inApril and saying Europe has to
step in.
We're not going to do anything.
I'm like we're losingterritories, we're losing people
, we're kind of struggling.
Now he's like't, like europehas to step in, we're done, and
(55:03):
I mean like and he's, he's, he'sbeen with us, like for all
these years.
He's there, he sees all theseguys all the time, like when he
comes and service his legs.
So it's um, if we're gonna goand push and ask, some bills are
going through, and one bill isactually going through right now
.
We pushed it in April and it'sgoing through right now.
(55:23):
So Americans have a right to sayand audition and listen,
because they need your vote.
That's what I think.
It works.
It works they like, for asudden, overnight, we became an
enemy and there's I think itworks.
It works they like, for asudden, overnight, we became an
enemy, and there's, I meanconversion, like you know, like
there's so many people thatdidn't rock, or Ukraine, it's
(55:46):
mixed, you know, someone likesthis camera doesn't talk about
it, and so on, but and they andthey're like okay, let's take
him on to Ukraine.
Speaker 6 (56:01):
But they still were like, no, that's all, it's okay.
I hope it will sound like, asI'm trying to figure out how to
say it in my mind, but there'sno such thing as Ukrainian Nazis
.
Why?
Because Russian propaganda usesa lot of like swords by
Ukrainians, and why they'reusing like the word Nazis is
(56:24):
because of their history.
They have a certain thing thatwe call a Belobesia.
They are tabling down on thetwisted history of victory and
Second World War.
They are actually kind of nutson this thing.
(56:50):
Because of that, theirgovernment finds this very easy
to control and propaganda.
If we call like anyone nazis,why?
Because they like fought andthe previous war they won, and
they are not just celebrating.
It's like really like a twisteduh now, like holiday uh in
(57:15):
russia, and that's why it's soeasy to manipulate Russians.
Because of that, they'recalling us Nazis, not because we
have Nazi people in Ukraine.
If it would be Poland, theywould call them Nazis.
If it would be Estonia, theywould call them.
(57:36):
It doesn't matter.
It's just like it's comfortableto them and easy to manipulate
people that way.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Christine and I donate to both these
organizations and what I want todo is make a pitch and
everybody, do what you want.
That's up to each person.
General Gray, who has been here, cannot be here, otherwise he
(58:10):
would be.
I spoke to him Sunday night andwe have seen the work done here
for two years of Combat WoundedVeterans Challenge.
Some people here fished withsome of the vets.
(58:30):
We watched them pull milfoilfrom a lake that had an
infestation.
We had lunch and dinnerstogether.
Combat Wounded VeteransChallenge is merged into Adam's
(58:54):
organization.
He's the CEO.
That means he has to absorb andadd to the programming from the
scuba activity in Key West toother things.
So this is an absorption of twoorganizations.
(59:16):
This is not a businesstransaction.
It's a philanthropictransaction and, as we all know
who have encountered this, it'sgeared to American vets who are
amputees.
He needs absorption help.
That takes money and otherthings.
(59:41):
It's up to Adam.
He will be with us untilSaturday morning and you can all
converse with him and he willbe able to tell you.
Here's what I need for myorganization, need for my
(01:00:02):
organization.
I want to explain or comment onthe acronym.
You use four letters outdoors,but not everybody here wore a
uniform.
What do the four letters standfor?
No person left behind In the USmilitary.
(01:00:23):
That's a code.
You don't leave a comrade.
I'm getting a shiver.
So anybody who wants to helpthis organization here's the CEO
and he can tell you how to doit.
What to do, we know, and itincludes sending money from a
(01:00:47):
donor advised fund to help them.
That's a merger, it's aone-time absorption and an
expansion of that organization.
Let me go to Irina.
She's the CEO of anorganization that is taking a
(01:01:09):
vet in Ukraine and helping themedical treatment, including
bringing that person to theUnited States.
We talked earlier today.
There were three cases.
(01:01:30):
One died.
Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
The patients that are waiting for evacuation One died
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
They cannot receive the treatment they need in
Ukraine.
It's not there, it's in Chicago.
So, what does it take to getthem?
When a Ukrainian soldier iswounded and needs treatment in
(01:02:01):
the United States and it ispossible to get them here Now,
remember the institutions in theUS are doing this.
This is not.
There is no VA.
This is a war zone.
There are no services that weall take for granted that we
have.
They're not there.
So if they can move on acommercial flight, it takes
(01:02:28):
money.
But, if they can't, then ittakes a private plane.
You saw one Now.
If everybody in this room had agolf stream, we could move
everybody here.
Well, we don't have that, butif we know someone who can, if
we can assist in thetransportation, if we can
(01:02:50):
provide funds.
David is being treated at Will'sEye in Philadelphia.
I've had surgery in that houseand everything that is being
done for him there is because ofphilanthropy 100% philanthropy,
(01:03:14):
there isn't anything else.
100% philanthropic, there isn'tanything else.
So anybody who wants to helpRevive Soldiers of the Ukraine,
brenda can tell you how to do it.
If you have a golf stream, shecan tell you what we can do with
it, and if you want to write acheck or help, she will say
(01:03:37):
thank you.
And the same thing is true forAdam.
They are with us until Saturdaymorning, and it took a little
moving beyond the economics andfinance to another level.
(01:03:59):
But I'm glad you came, I'm gladI invited you.
You didn't know what you werein for.
This is a wonderful group ofpeople.
This is a wonderful group ofpeople.
(01:04:21):
So each person decides on theirown what they want to do.
Here are the people to talk to.
Thank you for coming andjoining us.
All right, we're going fishingtomorrow, so we've got a big day
.
Thanks,
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