R.I.P.

22-Year-Old American Killed Fighting in Ukraine ‘Put Everybody Ahead of Himself’

Willy Joseph Cancel left behind a 7-month-old baby and a young wife.

An American citizen has been killed fighting against Russian forces in Ukraine, members of the fallen soldier’s family told CNN. On Thursday, the network reported that Willy Joseph Cancel, a 22-year-old former Marine, had been killed a month and a half after leaving his 7-month-old baby and wife in Tennessee. His mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN that Cancel’s fellow soldiers had not yet been able to find his body. “He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for,” she said, adding later that her son “always put everybody ahead of himself.” He had been sent to the Polish border on March 13, according to Cabrera, by a private military contracting company he had signed up to work for while also serving as a corrections officer. “It was something that he believed in his heart, that was the right thing,” Cabrera said. “He was the type of man who always stepped up when everybody else stepped back, and there were a lot of men who were like that that were with him.”