{"id":11351,"date":"2022-04-29T19:21:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T19:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/04\/29\/marine-veteran-killed-fighting-in-ukraine-relatives-say\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:21:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:21:53","slug":"marine-veteran-killed-fighting-in-ukraine-relatives-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/2022\/04\/29\/marine-veteran-killed-fighting-in-ukraine-relatives-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine veteran killed fighting in Ukraine, relatives say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A 22-year-old U.S. Marine veteran has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/2022\/04\/29\/north-carolina-national-guard-to-lend-support-to-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\">killed alongside Ukrainian forces <\/a>in the war with Russia, his relatives told news outlets in what\u2019s the first known death of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/2022\/03\/14\/us-veterans-head-to-ukraine-to-fight-but-zelenskyys-legion-faces-hurdles\/\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. citizen fighting in Ukraine.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Willy Joseph Cancel was killed Monday while working for a military contracting company that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2022\/03\/31\/no-war-tourism-for-marines-wanting-to-head-to-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\">sent him to Ukraine<\/a>, his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN. Cancel had recently worked as a corrections officer in Tennessee and had previously served in the Marines from 2017\u20132021, joining the service the same year he graduated from high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cabrera said her son had signed up to work with the private military contractor shortly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2022\/02\/25\/thousands-of-us-troops-deploying-for-first-ever-nato-response-force-activation-amid-russia-attack\/\" target=\"_blank\">before fighting began in Ukraine<\/a> on Feb. 24. She told CNN he agreed to go to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe 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\u2019t come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn\u2019t have to be involved in it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2022\/03\/31\/no-war-tourism-for-marines-wanting-to-head-to-ukraine\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP22080297059543.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">No war tourism for Marines wanting to head to Ukraine<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The Marine Corps announced some bad news for Marines seeking to spend their off time in a war zone.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cabrera said her son\u2019s body has not been found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey haven\u2019t found his body,\u201d she said. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She said her son flew to Poland on March 12 and entered Ukraine shortly after. She said he was fighting alongside men from a number of countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cancel had also served as a volunteer firefighter in New York and leaves behind a 7-month-old son, according to an online fundraising page set up by a man identifying himself as his father. His wife received the call informing her of his death on Tuesday, the page said. The father wrote that Cancel made the decision in early March to go to Ukraine because he wanted to defend innocent people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cancel graduated from Newburgh Free Academy in New York in 2017, the school district said. He participated in the Junior Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps while in high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cancel worked at a private prison in Tennessee from May 2021 until January, said Matthew Davio, a spokesman for the private prison company CoreCivic. The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, a medium security facility, is about an hour northeast of Nashville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAs a correctional officer, Mr. Cancel served his state and his community by helping maintain a safe, secure environment where inmates can participate in life-changing reentry programs. We are grateful for his service and saddened by his loss,\u201d Davio said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While in the Marines, Cancel served as a rifleman and was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He was given a bad conduct discharge after he was convicted of violating a lawful general order, Marine Corps spokesperson Maj. Jim Stenger said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He had no war zone deployments, Stenger said. No other details on the bad conduct conviction were provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The U.S. has not confirmed the reports of Cancel\u2019s death. On Friday, the State Department said it was aware of the reports and is \u201cclosely monitoring the situation\u201d but could not comment further \u201cdue to privacy considerations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe once again reiterate U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict and the singling out of U.S. citizens in Ukraine by Russian government security officials, and that U.S. citizens in Ukraine should depart immediately if it is safe to do so using any commercial or other privately available ground transportation options,\u201d the State Department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cancel\u2019s widow, Brittany Cancel, told Fox News he leaves behind a young son and that she sees her husband as a hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMy husband did die in Ukraine,\u201d Brittany Cancel said. \u201cHe went there wanting to help people, he had always felt that that was his main mission in life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She said her husband volunteered to go to Ukraine but also had aspirations of becoming a police officer or firefighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe had dreams and aspirations of being a police officer or joining FDNY,\u201d she told Fox. \u201cNaturally when he found out about what was happening in Ukraine, he was eager to volunteer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tens of thousands of Ukrainians are believed to have been killed in the war. Other noncombatants from the U.S. have been killed, including a documentary filmmaker who was slain when his vehicle came under fire at a checkpoint and a man killed while he was waiting in a bread line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Drew reported form Durham, North Carolina. Contributing were AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington and Associated Press writers Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Allen G. Breed in Hubert, North Carolina; Kristin Hall in Murray, Kentucky; Karen Matthews in New York; and Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He would be the first known U.S. citizen to have been killed while fighting in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,22,8,23,89,12,26,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[815],"class_list":["post-11351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-disaster","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BX6HSS3JK5BZZIM3EIFCYRDST4","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2022\/04\/29\/marine-veteran-killed-fighting-in-ukraine-relatives-say\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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