Ukrainian wedding towel in American volunteer’s coffin: Why Californian Ian chose to fight for Ukraine

A command crackles over the radio: Move forward. The path is clear of mines, they’ve been told. The explosion catches everyone off guard. Soldiers hit the dirt. Only Ian drops his machine gun and races toward his wounded brother-in-arms, who is screaming in pain. There’s no time to look back or figure out who’s to blame for leading them through a minefield. Ian applies a tourniquet, trying to stop the bleeding, just a few steps away from another mine he miraculously avoids.

Later, Ian’s father, John Frank Tortorici, would see Go-Pro footage: his son carrying the bloodied brother-in-arms through the minefield. That day, despite a concussion, Ian fought for 18 more hours before ending up in a hospital. His Swedish friend suffered a severe leg injury but survived and eventually returned to the front. Ian saved his life.

“My son never told me about the friends he lost in the war. He just sent photos of them together. That was his way of showing how close they were and how much it hurt. Then I’d see those faces in the news and learn they’d recently died in Ukraine,” John said.

From sunny California to cold Ukraine

Ian made all crucial decisions on his own. He never asked for advice. He didn’t tell anyone he was going to fight in Ukraine. His mother only learned of it after he was killed.

“Ian didn't want anyone to worry about him. I found out he was in Ukraine when he was already there. He messaged me on my Signal app, and I was thinking: Why would he be using Signal? And I said, what are you up to? What are you doing? So he told me that he was in Ukraine. I'm going to help out for a little bit over here. That's what he wrote back. He said he wasn’t doing anything dangerous, but I knew that wasn’t true. My ex-wife never forgave me for not telling her our son had gone to war,” John says with a sad smile.

In his youth, John Frank Tortorici served in the U.S. Marine Corps for eight years and then worked as a federal marshal for 25 years. Ian followed in his footsteps. At 18, he enlisted in the Marines to get money for college.

“Nobody pushed him. Ian wanted to be independent. He graduated high school on Friday and on Monday he went to Marine Corps Boot camp. He became the first in our family to obtain a college degree,” Ian’s father explained.

Born and raised in California, Ian was the middle son, with two brothers, Anthony and Taylor.

Older brother Anthony practiced martial arts, and Ian looked up to him. At school in Laguna Hills, a small town by the Pacific Ocean, Ian took up wrestling from a young age. He excelled in wrestling in high school, breaking the school’s all-time pinning record.

“He was a very fast runner. But he never wanted to finish first in the physical fitness tests. When he was being first, he slowed down until somebody would pass him. He never bragged about his achievements or sought attention. Some ex-Marines boast about their service at every chance. But Ian never really talked about it,” John said.

In the Marine Corps, Ian specialized in data and radio communication systems, never seeing combat. Afterward, he enrolled at the prestigious Seattle Pacific University. One day there was an active shooter at his university.. Someone entered the building with a gun, hunting students. John saw it on the news and called his son up. Ian's voice was so calm that it took John a while to remember why he was calling.

“I called him up, and he didn't mention any of that.  His calm threw me off. When I asked him about it, he said he was locked down in the bathroom, and the shooting was in the building next door to him. He assured me that he was safe. It was happening right there in real time but he didn't say that until I brought it up. That's the way his personality was. I think he just didn’t feel fear. Thankfully, no one died that day,” John said.

Ian studied to be a teacher, but after his internship, he decided that this was not what he wanted to do. He took an office job in Microsoft’s HR department, greeting new hires with Italian food. When someone said that he was Indian and preferred Indian food, Ian would smile and reply that this was not the best choice as Italian cuisine was the world’s tastiest.

“Ian didn’t care what others thought of him. He would joke even in the darkest of times. If you didn't have a sense of humor, you could never be his friend.  He loved making people laugh, bringing smiles when it seemed like there was no room for it,” his father recalled, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Ian didn’t like office life. He craved real brotherhood, not superficial ties or career ambitions. So he took a job as a U.S. Park Ranger.  He patrolled national parks for six months and then took six months off.  He loved backcountry patrols.

In his free time, he backpacked across Europe with a passion for old architecture, savoring the continent of his ancestors. Ian deeply researched his family genealogy, tracing Italian, Romanian, and Ukrainian roots. His forebears included Ukrainian Jews named Syniavskyy.

Ian knew relatives on his father’s side had emigrated from Sicily to America, so when he had the chance to travel, Sicily was his first destination.

“My dad took his stepfather’s name, Frank, although his father had an Italian surname, Tortorici. I was John Frank my whole life. But Ian changed his name to Tortorici. He wanted the connection to his ancestors to be unbroken,” said John, who also took Tortorici after his son’s death.

After three years as a Ranger, Ian was hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, graduating from the training academy as the Outstanding Distinguished Graduate. It was a prestigious, well-paid job that took him to Philadelphia. He loved its historic architecture, which reminded him of Europe a little.

At 27, Ian bought a 120-year-old house and renovated it himself, learning how to fix it up from YouTube videos.

“He didn’t ask anyone. Just bought it. I found out when a bank letter came to our California address. After he was killed, his brother went to his house in Philadelphia, and he found in the bottom of the closet plaques that were awarded to him for being the top graduate of the academy. Ian never shared that with us or anybody else,” his father recalled.

In Philadelphia, Ian attended a Romanian Orthodox church, dug deeper into his family history, and often visited his paternal grandparents in New Jersey. His grandfather shared memories and talked about politics.

But Ian was indifferent to politics. He dreamed of returning to Ukraine to see Nadiya.

Ian and Nadiya

Ian and Nadia met in October 2021, less than five months before the full-scale Russian invasion. Russian troops were already amassing at Ukraine’s border, preparing to strike. Yet the world was more preoccupied with COVID-19 than the looming war.

With EU borders closed due to the pandemic, Ian chose Ukraine for vacation — one of the few European countries without entry restrictions. It was his first visit. He explored Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and Odesa, a southern city by the Black Sea, before heading to Lviv in the western part of the country.

“A mutual friend asked me to show Ian around Lviv. I’m an English teacher by training but realized early it wasn’t for me and never worked in the field. I worried my English wouldn’t be good enough to chat easily with an American. But from the first minute, we clicked,” Nadiya recalled, her large, kind eyes lighting up as she spoke of Ian.

On his second trip to Ukraine in November, Ian asked Nadiya to be his girlfriend. She said yes, and they started dating.

“Our relationship was about building a family. We got to know each other and talked a lot about life together, dreams, shared values, and the future,” Nadiya said.

Over the next few months, Ian returned to Ukraine several times to see her. But the war changed everything.

At 6 a.m. on February 24, 2022, Ian called Nadiya, urging her to leave Ukraine immediately and promising support.

“His call woke me up. I didn’t understand what he was talking about at first. Turns out, I learned about the full-scale war from someone thousands of kilometers away from my country,” Nadiya recalled.

Ian quit his job and arrived in Lviv on March 3. He went straight to the training ground at Yavoriv military base, northwest of Lviv, and called Nadiya. He told her he was joining the fight.

“My first reaction was shock. I tried to talk him out of it, suggested humanitarian aid instead, staying far from combat,” Nadiya recalls.

Ian spent a few days at the training ground. Disappointed with how slowly the detachment of foreign volunteers was gathering, he went to Kyiv. A week after he left, a Russian missile hit the training ground, killing 64 people.

“At that moment, I thought God was protecting Ian. That thought kept me going when he didn't get in touch for a long time,” Nadiya said.

In half-encircled Kyiv, Ian joined the territorial defense of Ukrainian volunteers, protecting Irpin, a small town northwest of Kyiv. He took the call sign “Tortorici,” carefully writing it in Ukrainian on his patch. His father was terrified when he found out where his son was.

“I told him to get out of there, said it was only a matter of time before the Russians took over Kyiv. But he replied that Ukrainians would fight to the end and would never let that happen,” John said.

Ian began to wholeheartedly despise the Russian invaders for what they were doing in Ukraine. He wanted to stop them from killing Ukrainian civilians. Men, women, and children.  He saw the bodies of innocent people lying on the streets of small Ukrainian towns that had been mercilessly razed to the ground by Russian bombs. He felt the strength to fight back. This war became personal for him. He knew he was fighting against an absolute evil that could swallow millions like a black hole if no one stopped it. Witnessing Russian atrocities near Kyiv, Ian switched from medic to machine gunner.

“In one battle, their unit had many wounded. Ian gave first aid and carried them to the evac vehicle. It was packed with injured fighters, no room for the machine gun. He had to leave it on the battlefield. He took it hard — he loved that gun, though carrying it wasn’t easy,” Nadiya said.

After Russians were forced to retreat from Kyiv Oblast in northern Ukraine, Ian joined the International Legion, serving in the war’s hottest spots. In one of the schools ruined by Russian bombs in eastern Ukraine, he found an intact portrait of Taras Shevchenko, a prominent Ukrainian poet. He took this portrait everywhere their unit was stationed. It became a talisman for Ian and his comrades.  He even memorized a few lines from Shevchenko’s poem “Kateryna”:

“O lovely maidens, fall in love,

But not with Muscovites [Russians],

For Muscovites are foreign folk,

They do not treat you right.”

He rarely saw Nadiya but talked often by phone.

“In fall 2022, after a year together, I told Ian about the wedding towel — an old Ukrainian tradition. I said I’d embroider it myself for our wedding. He was so touched. We decided: once I finished it, we’d marry,” Nadiya said.

Nadia embroidered while Ian was fighting. Over nearly 16 months, he defended Sievierodonetsk and Bakhmut in the eastern part of the country, where the Russians were on the offensive, and fought at strategically important Kinburn Spit in southern Ukraine. He even joined a failed secret mission to liberate the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the biggest nuclear plant in Europe that the Russian army occupied in March 2022. Ian jokingly referred to his comrades who volunteered for this mission as a “suicide squad” — the odds of success were that slim.

“Their unit was called ‘50/50’ because those were the odds of surviving a mission, Ian explained. He wrote me: ‘If I don’t make it back, don’t make a fuss. You have two more sons and grandchildren, so everything will be okay. Go to an Orthodox church. Just not a Russian one.’ But he always emerged from the fiercest fights nearly unscathed, except for that concussion in southern Ukraine in March,” John recalls.

In April 2023, Ian got a brief leave and rushed to Lviv to see Nadiya. With few chances to meet since the invasion, every minute was precious. Time flew fast. Ian returned to war; Nadiya kept embroidering the wedding towel.

After the war, Ian dreamed of living in Ukraine, marrying Nadiya, and having three children. They even picked names. 

“I think the type of names for my children should be the type for their mother’s people. They get my last name anyway,” Ian told Nadiya.

Weeks after their last meeting, Ian would get killed. The unfinished wedding towel stayed with him forever — Nadiya asked to put it in his coffin.

She tried many times to stop him from fighting, but he was resolute:

I fight because I can help. Look, I was even born in 1991, the year Ukraine gained independence. I’ll fight until this war ends.Ian Tortorici

"I will protect my people"

The International Legion contract allows volunteers to leave anytime. Ian never considered this option.

“He didn’t seek leadership. But after their unit took heavy losses, Ian stepped up, doing all he could to recruit new guys. He even gave them cash from his wallet when their pay was delayed by bureaucracy. Ian loved the International Legion and Ukraine. He found the brotherhood and friendship there he had always sought,” his father says.

When John again begged Ian to come home, even briefly, he refused: “I’ll be here to the end and fight for our people.”

After liberating Klishchiyivka, a small town occupied by Russians in eastern Ukraine, without losses, Ian and his comrades got some time off duty in the nearby rear.

On June 27, 2023, Ian and some of his teammates went to a pizzeria in downtown Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast, some 40 miles from the Eastern Front. It was a warm, sunny day. Families with kids sat at tables. John saw news of a Russian missile strike on the pizzeria and texted Ian. No reply.

That day, 13 died in the pizzeria, including four children and a famous Ukrainian novelist and war crimes researcher Victoria Amelina. Days later, the U.S. State Department called John to tell him his son was dead.

“I already knew it. I felt it in my guts. I knew he might’ve been there. He loved good food. Ian lived a simple life, uninterested in material things, thriving on learning, travel, great cuisine, and a good joke. He was kind and generous beyond measure,” John said.

When John came to Ukraine to pick up his son's body and bring it back to America, he saw many young men wandering the streets. Nadiya asked if it hurt to see young Ukrainians far from the front lines enjoying a sunny day when Ian sacrificed his life defending them.

“I didn’t pay attention to that. I only saw young people in uniform, missing an arm or leg, walking the streets. I looked at them and wished it was my son. That was the only way to save him and bring him home. Ian stayed true to himself to the last day. He’d do anything for his family and those he loved,” John said.

In the United States, Ian’s casket was met with military honors as a Marine veteran. He was buried at Riverside National Cemetery in California.

But Americans who die fighting for Ukraine are viewed differently than those in the U.S. military. Ian and others aren’t considered combat veterans. For most Americans, this war remains too distant to care about.

In three years of Russia’s full-scale war, 65 American volunteers fighting for Ukraine have died. Another 20 are considered missing in action.