(Dobbs) Inspiring Stories of Inspiring People Helping Ukraine
Even moral support counts for something.
An uplifting story just caught my eye. Uplifting, even though it’s about Ukraine.
In a newspaper called The Mountaineer in Waynesville, North Carolina, writer Carol Viau tells about a local citizen who has put his life on the line to help a nation being torn to shreds by a barbaric and pitiless aggressor.
His name is John Culp, an explosives specialist. He retired as a Lt. Colonel from the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, then did the same work with explosives as a civilian for the federal government. And then, in the spirit of better-known non-profits like Doctors Without Borders, he became a part of Bomb Techs Without Borders. Its mission? “To prevent casualties caused by landmines, IEDs, and other explosive remnants of war.”
Heaven knows, Ukraine today is Ground Zero for that.
Bomb Techs Without Borders is not part of any government program to help Ukraine. The bomb techs, like Culp, are volunteers, so much so that he has donated not only his time and expertise, but his travel expenses, to get into Ukraine to defuse bombs. As Viau writes, he starting seeing social media posts about firefighters and police taking on the dangerous challenge of “safing" unexploded ordnance— needless to say, not part of their basic training— and decided not just that he could help, but that he should help. The army vet told one interviewer, “I feel it’s an elemental struggle between good and evil.”
The first ordinance he worked on wasn’t even fired, it was in the remnants of Russian tanks after they were destroyed early in the war by the Ukrainians. “I feel like Ukraine is fighting the war we were planning to fight 30 years ago,” he says, and told Viau, “The cold war is now hot. I’m going to do my bit.”
From what I see, a lot of us want to “do my bit.” But how?
Well, other stories also have caught my eye. One is about a Syrian-American surgeon from Edinburg, Texas, who already has traveled to Ukraine several times to lend a hand in its severely stressed medical system— severely stressed because so many hospitals and clinics have been bombed, and because so many Ukrainians, bombarded in Russia’s blitz, need medical help.
His name is Monger Yazji, and sometimes he has been part of more than a half-dozen surgeries in a single day. “As a physician first,” he told CNN, “it’s our duty and our ethics to help every needy person in the war.”
Then there’s Malcolm Nance, who was a national security analyst for many years on MSNBC but when the war started, the longtime television talker got into Ukraine and enlisted in a multinational volunteer unit with the Ukrainian armed forces. “The more I saw of the war I thought, I’m done talking, it’s time to take action.”
Ukraine says there are about a hundred Americans who have taken action as Nance has done, and thousands more from other nations.
And here’s an inspiring story from near San Diego, where thousands of Ukrainian refugees have been entering the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico. Members of a church in Chula Vista, only about eight miles north of the border, have offered at least temporary homes to thousands who’ve fled Ukraine. "Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself,” the pastor explains. “Right now, these are our neighbors.”
But maybe my favorite story— because it’s something we all can relate to— is about a guy named Erich Priester in Tubac, Arizona. As a supporter of Ukraine, he’s showing the flag. Literally.
Priester is cutting rectangular planks of wood and in his garage, painting them the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Dozens of them and more to come. Then he goes to his neighbors and asks them to show the flag, just like he does.
Many have said yes. Moral support counts for something too.
Stories like these are the silver lining of this unspeakable war. But of course most of us don’t have the means, or the skills, or the unstinting devotion to do what these assiduous Americans are doing. We don’t have to. Because in smaller ways, whether they’re literal or symbolic, we can show our own support for Ukraine.
We can donate to relief agencies to help the ill-starred refugees— including those still stuck in Ukraine— who’ve done nothing to deserve Vladimir Putin’s punishment. We can let our elected officials in Washington know that our country’s contributions to a democracy fighting to stay alive is a small price to pay for that beleaguered nation’s sacrifices. And we can endure higher gas prices without complaint, because every time we drive to the pump, we can simply tell ourselves, every Ukrainian is having a tougher day than we are.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies and politics at home and international crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.