Story of American who did not become soldier of International Legion

"I thought Ukrainian old ladies wanted to kill me"

James heard about Ukrainians in 2014. The IT company where he worked in the United States had several employees from Ukraine. They worked online from Kyiv and protested on the Maidan. Fascinated by his colleagues, James decides to visit Ukraine someday.

The opportunity came five years later. His contract with one of the companies where he worked as a network administrator had just expired.

"I had money and decided to visit Europe. My grandfather was Norwegian, and I was looking for my roots, but there were a lot of people with this name: I thought it was rare, but I found a whole town of people like me," the man laughs in the pizzeria. This is his favorite place in Horodyshche, and the waiters here know his preferences. One of them brings him a cappuccino.

He found no traces of his family and moved on. He traveled around Europe by bicycle, and when he broke his leg and recovered, he hitchhiked. Norway, Sweden, Germany. And finally, in 2019, he arrived in Ukraine.

The first thing that struck him in Kyiv was a huge banner with the words: "Freedom is our religion."

""Americans are obsessed with freedom and democracy. In Ukraine, this is in the air. In addition, there are fewer rules here than, say, in Germany," James shares his first impressions.

He was surprised to see almost no one smiling in Ukraine because that is not the case in the United States.

"I thought that every babtsia in Ukraine wanted to kill me, I was afraid of them," James pronounces the word babtsia (‘old lady’) in Ukrainian, "They walk around with such serious faces! In general, babtsia in Ukraine is a separate phenomenon, I don't understand why they don't let you open the windows in a shuttle bus in the worst heat!"

The American settled in Kyiv and got a job as an English teacher at a private school. And then the lockdown due to COVID-19 hit. Cafes and parks were closed to the public, and communication mostly went online. That's how James met Oksana.

"I fell in love with a Ukrainian woman because she apologized"

Two years before the pandemic, Oksana decided that it was not enough for her to work as an operator at an Epicentr DIY store as she wanted to grow. To do this, she needed to learn English. She took her first, second, and then third course. She practiced with native English speakers on various websites, where she met James. After a little bit of chatting, this cheerful, vocal man sank deep into her soul. At that time, summer cafes had just opened, so James invited her to meet him.

"I didn't have the same vocabulary then as I do now, but it saved me that he spoke mostly. Americans tend to tell all about the whole family right away. So within an hour, I knew about his grandparents and aunts and uncles," the black-haired woman, whom her husband calls baby, recalls her first date.

She also learned about his past relationships: he has an adult son from his first one. After the breakup, his second wife left him to raise their son with autism. The boy has already grown up and married. For the third time, James tried to find happiness in a relationship with a woman who already had a child. Their daughter was born in this marriage.

"So, in fact, he has three children, one adopted and one foster child. He also has grandchildren. When we met, I was in my forties. I happened to have lived all my life alone. I took his experience wisely and prudently: what happened, happened," Oksana reflects.

"I liked her right away because she knows how to embroider, and I immediately dreamed of wearing an embroidered shirt," her husband jokes.

“Many a true word is spoken in jest,” Oksana looks at her husband. She knows that he likes interesting clothes.

James is fond of historical reenactments, especially of the Viking period. He attends festivals, fights with swords, has a helmet and armor. He has sewn many shoes, shirts, bags, and belts in the style of antiquity. He says his full name is James Arthur, like King Arthur.

"I was actually impressed that Oksana apologized for something. You don't hear that in the United States. Women manipulate when they want something. This makes relationships so difficult. In Europe, it's not easy either: women are primarily interested in how much you earn. During my trip, I was proposed to by two women in Germany and one man in Sweden. He was a friend of mine and thus wanted to make my stay in the country easier if I decided to stay there.

Oksana, on the other hand, was so sincere that it was unusual. She is simple, dressed in ordinary jeans, her lips are not pumped up. I liked the fact that she was not wearing a crown. Even though she's a princess," he kisses his wife's temple, and she kisses his shoulder.

"But he wasn't going to marry me, he had been burned too much in the past. We got married so that we wouldn't lose each other in the war," Oksana admits honestly.

"Am I a coward to run away?"

Before the outbreak of the full-scale war, they had lived together for about a year. They established that the woman was against guests wearing shoes in the house and spicy Mexican cuisine, and the husband did not like jellied meat and the separation of clothes for home and for going out.

The practical and rational nature of the Ukrainian woman clashed with the romantic nature of the American. When he shared his plans to open his English-language school or restore old houses in villages with volunteers and give them to the displaced, Oksana saw so many obstacles that she immediately objected.

But they got used to each other: each cooks separately, they can wear slippers, and the main thing is that they have love, understanding, and common interests. Oksana embroidered him a shirt with rune-like designs, and James made her a dress for historical reenactment festivals. However, they managed to attend only one.

A few days before the Russian invasion, the couple got married. At the time, the American embassy was urging its citizens to return to the United States, but James did not even consider it.

"Don't think that life in America is better," he explains. The question from Ukrainians, 'Why didn't you leave?' is already openly annoying to him. “Life is different there. Yes, there is no war there, but it can start at any time. Besides, am I a coward to run away?"

James asked his wife to evacuate by train from Kyiv to Lviv, and he was going to go to war. But the trains to the west were overcrowded, and the couple went to Horodyshche, to Oksana's parents.

In the middle of the night, when his wife was sleeping, James tried several times to join the army. She stopped him at the door.

"First, it was curfew, and I didn't want anything to happen to him. Secondly, he doesn't speak the language. He's also a little bit like a child, living in illusions: he thinks he's a hero, a Viking, a Superman. ‘What do you mean, he won't go to war? How will he look into the eyes of those with whom he competed in reenactments?’ But war is not a game, and I was clearly aware of that," she explains.

"I am not unique in defending a country other than my own. If Russia wins, it will affect democracy around the world. It's important that someone fights for freedom," James strongly argues against her.

Then, in 2022, tired of arguing with him and proving that there are different kinds of struggle, Oksana agreed to have her husband join the army. But she did not take him by the hand to the recruiting office.

He found an English-speaking worker at the military commissariat and explained what he wanted. They promised to call him back. A whole year passed before James was invited to the Yavoriv training ground.

"The International Legion had already been formed, with NATO trainers and Ukrainian commanders. Volunteers from other countries came to fight: Colombians, Mexicans, and others.

He was registered there and lived in the barracks with everyone else. Our guys know what it's like. But for him, a portable shower and a latrine are stressful, shocking and terrifying. What does it feel like to have a hole in the floor? What does it mean to have no toilet? You have to sit on something. I asked him: ‘How will you fight in the forest, in a trench?’ And he laughs that he will carry a toilet with him," Oksana recounts the training.

Her husband called her from training every day: he didn't eat porridge, chicken wings, or fish. He was hungry. All she could do was send money for him to have lunch in a cafe, and she kept repeating: "This is army life. You don't get to pick and choose. How are you going to fight?"

She even received a call from one of the commanders when James decided to install toilets in the barracks and explained why it was impossible. According to Oksana, in the early days, volunteers who were not physically fit and had seen "tanks" in video games were dropped. After meeting Ukrainian realities, they quickly returned home.

Her husband says that he passed all of the tasks required by the standards, except for the last one, when he had to evacuate a wounded man. He picked up a hundred-kilogram soldier in armor and with a machine gun on his shoulders incorrectly, threw his back out, and dislocated his wrist.

James was granted a two-week leave to go home. But the injuries did not go away, so he could not go back to training at the range because of the pain. Now the man is recovering and helping Ukraine in other ways.

"I feel Ukrainian"

An American man runs a YouTube channel where he tells his compatriots about the news from the war in Ukraine. He also hosts streams where he answers questions from ordinary Americans. He also collects donations. He says that he spends them on the needs of the International Legion, in particular on parts for drones: he has already managed to raise several tens of thousands of dollars.

In addition, James Vish visits Ukrainian schools to teach teenagers how to assemble and fly drones. He dreams of organizing a drone school in Horodyshche. He is looking for people who would help him with this.

Oksana hardly ever sees him as he's always on business trips, and she's often away. With her knowledge of English, she got a job in a travel company.

"My husband has already come to realize that doing what you do best is more useful for the front than just destroying your health," she says.

Now James is waiting for a response to his request to see if he will be recruited as a drone operator in a military unit. His younger daughter still refuses to talk to him because he has not left the country where a bloody war is ongoing.

"It hurts me," he admits. "But I can't leave Ukraine because the history of the struggle for democracy and freedom is being made here. I feel like a Ukrainian. I feel good here."

During our conversation, the siren sounded five times. James did not pay attention.

"Ukraine is a country of great opportunities, and I am grateful to fate for the opportunity to do something good here," he says in parting.