A former U.S. Marine fighting in Ukraine was killed in combat this week, his family said, according to a report on Thursday.
Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, had been working for a private military contracting company in Ukraine since March 12 or 13. He was killed in fighting on Monday, and his body has not been recovered, according to the report.
“He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn’t come here and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn’t have to be involved in it,” Cancel’s mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.
Cancel, originally from Orange County, New York, worked as a corrections officer in Tennessee before signing up with the private military company after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He had served in the Marine Corps before that. He was fighting alongside men from “all different countries,” according to Cabrera.
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The circumstances surrounding Cancel’s death and in which part of the country he was fighting are unclear. The private military firm he was working for was not named in the report.
“They haven’t found his body,” Cabrera said. “They are trying, the men that were with him, but it was either grab his body or get killed, but we would love for him to come back to us.”
Cancel is survived by his wife and his 7-month-old baby, Cabrera said.
“He was just a really thoughtful person. He always put everybody ahead of himself even when situations were so stressful,” Cancel’s mother said. “He always kept everybody laughing and calm. He was the man that stood up when everybody else stood back.”
Shortly after the war broke out, Ukraine sent out a global call to arms seeking foreign fighters for the war effort. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry created an International Legion for foreign fighters coming into the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that at least 16,000 had signed up to join.
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Last week, Zelensky said about 2,500 to 3,000 of his soldiers have been killed since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.
