The Network Vol. I
𝑳𝒆𝒔 𝑬𝒏𝒇𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒖𝒔 - Guerrilla Tactical
The Shepherds
“We were in the apartment, normally the cruise missiles would come in during the night but this one came in during the day. It went right over the apartment, you could hear the whistle sound and then boom. Impact a few blocks away, the shaking of the glass and building, the plume of smoke rising. It’s just something you have to learn to live with.”
Jack Potter worked in the Maritime Sector for just over seven years as an officer and boarding instructor. In the era of the Global War on Terror, his experiences were unique to the community. In the Maritime Security world, much of the highlighted work was off the coasts of African nations where he played a role in building relationships and conducted joint patrols with multiple African countries. Jack, however, also had the opportunity to work a variety of security missions and building partner capacity missions out of Europe, Japan, Antarctica and various West African nations. The organization he predominantly worked for is known as Sea Shepherd Global, a conservation based organization. He worked in this community from 2013 to 2020, with COVID playing a role in his departure. With COVID policies being enacted, many Americans working abroad soon became worried about being trapped abroad, unable to return home.
“You know, my wife and I, who I met while working for Sea Shepherd Global, we just didn’t want to risk what was potentially coming with the COVID restrictions. We moved to Washington, in the woods but close enough to Portland. That’s when we started Guerrilla Tactical. Guerrilla Tactical is a holster and gear manufacturing company, we look to facilitate the equipping and training of responsible citizens so they may better defend themselves.”
Jack continued expanding his business throughout the years as COVID died down. Things would change in early 2022 though, the cogs of war turning, prompting Jack to take another trip to a conflict zone. Jack had some contacts he had known for years, guys who fought in Syria alongside the YPG International forces, Kurdish forces who were fighting ISIL who had since gone to Ukraine during the War in the Donbas. He continued keeping in touch with them through the years, and reached out directly as Russian forces began building up around the Ukrainian border in the north, the south and east. His friends would soon find themselves no longer fighting separatists, but instead fighting a conventional Russian force. Like many people, Jack watched closely to social media feeds who were monitoring the build up and rumor began to spread that at 0400 local time on February 24th, Russians would cross the line of departure. At 9PM EST and 6PM PST Americans watched as videos rapidly came out showing strikes across the country, reports of increased fighting, armored columns and firefights.
“… having friends there, you know I had been to Ukraine, it’s a beautiful country and beautiful people. I felt I needed to do something, anything to help, so we just started planning as best we could with contacts we had. By late March, beginning of April we were in Poland. We worked in different areas for a total of 2 1/2 weeks. We worked with refugees at a center in Warsaw for a little, and then went to the border and began working out of a border town called Medyka. We distributed food, clothing, helped with logistics, did border runs with supplies, provided direct medical assistance to anyone who had any issues and also at times did security at some of the refugee tents.”
As with any war, there are those who are willing to help, and those looking to exploit. The need for security at refugee centers grew as the numbers of refugees grew but also as individuals with nefarious intent began preying on those centers. As most Ukrainian men were expected to stay in the country and fight, the refugees were primarily women and children, often unaccompanied and vulnerable, resulting in issues with human trafficking and sex trafficking. Jack and those with him watched as scores of people with nothing more than what they could carry walked across the border after having traveled miles and in some cases days on foot, fleeing from their war torn country.
“There was a woman I remember, this sticks out to me a lot, who was probably in her late 60s to 70s who had walked for the days to get to the border. She had walked for two days straight while barefoot. We wanted to get her shoes, so we asked her for her size and ran to one of the clothing distribution areas to get boots. When we brought them to her though, her feet were so swollen that they just didn’t fit. She needed two sizes bigger than her normal size to fit in. There was also another woman who sticks out in my mind. This was in one of the refugee areas, she was in front of her tent with her kids when she got a phone call and collapsed to her knees. She began crying and sobbing uncontrollably. We ran over to help and brought a translator who began speaking with her. She had just gotten a call from her uncle saying that her husband, who was a soldier, had been killed by a mortar.”
Despite the desire to stay longer, Jack and his team retrograded back to the United States after 2 1/2 weeks. That short time in itself was enough to lend a perspective of the war very few have seen in person. It is an eerie thing to see as scores of women and children come across the border without their men, to see miles-long lines of cars and trails of humans walking on foot, fleeing their homeland. Americans in large have not felt this side of war in a very long time. Jack was burdened by a feeling many who have worked in these occupations or environments know all too well. The feeling of not having done enough. The urge to do more, to help more.
“I just felt I hadn’t done enough. I went home, and just kept watching the war unfold, knowing I had friends there, feeling like I needed to help out just as a human. So we started planning again.”
Odesa: The Midnight Train
“… We had a Ukrainian Territorial Defense unit hit us up asking about training, seeing if we could train them in country. They gave us a background of these guys, the amount of training and gear they’d received, man they were ill prepared and under-equipped. The unit was in Odesa and was going to be folded into the Ukrainian military, soon to be sent to the front. We started working with Grizzly Medical to develop a curriculum. Then we started gathering as much supplies as we could gather to fit these guys with IFAKs and basic casualty care items they’d need at the front. Altogether we gathered around $7,000-$8,000 worth of medical supplies before we started our trip.”
Jack and the team at Grizzly Medical worked intensely to plan this mission before executing. Despite the extensive planning, plans shortly fell through once in country. The driver who had been assigned to help them had bailed due to fuel shortages. Russian forces were targeting infrastructure and due to the logistical issues, fuel shortages were affecting much of the nation, with the Ukrainian armed forces being prioritized for receiving those resources. A cross-country train to Odesa would be the only option for them.
“It was pretty eerie. Most of the trains were scheduled at night and entirely blacked out to avoid being a target. By this time there had been at least one strike against a train station. We didn’t know if we’d be targeted, we knew the Russians were targeting different infrastructures during this time. The train would make random stops throughout the night, nobody leaving their cabin, nobody talking, sometimes it would last 5 minutes, other times 30 minutes or so. You just tried to sleep, and eventually we did. We woke up once we reached Odesa.”
Odesa was for the most part had not endured the war the same as other cities of Ukraine. Though no front line fighting was done in or around Odesa, it did remain under missile and drone attack fairly regularly, with a heavy emphasis on strikes against the infrastructure that powered and supported the city. Odesa is a city critical to the nation as well, a large port city it was suspected that Russian forces may conduct a large scale amphibious assault from the black sea. This prompted Ukrainian forces to began fortifying defenses in and around the city. This led to photos and videos that many likened to those out of World War 2 - beaches laden with tank traps, landmines and sand bag machine gun positions. Russian warships could be seen on the horizon. The people of the city and its defenders were living in the shadow of a potential invasion.
“Odesa was one of those cities where you could go down to the boardwalk, see the beach, truly in a beautiful city, get food from a local vendor, turn around and see a warning sign for landmines, see a cruise missile fly overhead and hear air raid sirens really all in one tiny little area and all in five minutes. The cruise missiles usually came at night, but I remember one time we were in the apartment we had been put up in, it was still day and I watched it go right over our building. A few seconds went by and boom. The windows, walls, everything shook, car alarms were going off, there was a big plume of smoke coming from a church building a few blocks away. A few days earlier to this, there was a similar strike that happened, a missile strike which hit an apartment building, killing a baby.”
The group secured living quarters in the city instead of staying on or near the base and would be picked up every morning by the troops and dropped off every night. The Guerrilla Tactical and Grizzly Medical group worked extensively with the Ukrainian Territorial Defense unit to provide them need to know information and training pertinent to increasing their survivability on the battlefield that they simply hadn’t been taught yet. They delved into TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care) modules with the soldiers day and night. Through their two weeks of training they were able to spin up over 100 Ukrainian soldiers who had zero prior training or knowledge on basic combat medicine as well as fully train with confidence at least 15 combat medics. With the medical supplies they brought in, they outfitted the unit with as many basic individual first aid kits and items they could.
“We really hammered these guys with as much as we could in those 2 weeks. We did what we could with the time we had. 80-90% of those guys have since gotten folded into units and rotated to various parts of the front. We all wish we could have stayed longer, and I often think about going back, we have responsibilities here in the United States though. It was short, but also a very rewarding experience. Every once in awhile I’ll get a text or photo from one of the guys we trained saying how the training or gear we gave them kept them alive, that’s a feeling you can’t replicate. On our way out we stopped in Poland for a few days to decompress and get right. I’d like to come back, but we’ll see…”
The Shepherds
“We were in the apartment, normally the cruise missiles would come in during the night but this one came in during the day. It went right over the apartment, you could hear the whistle sound and then boom. Impact a few blocks away, the shaking of the glass and building, the plume of smoke rising. It’s just something you have to learn to live with.”
Jack Potter worked in the Maritime Sector for just over seven years as an officer and boarding instructor. In the era of the Global War on Terror, his experiences were unique to the community. In the Maritime Security world, much of the highlighted work was off the coasts of African nations where he played a role in building relationships and conducted joint patrols with multiple African countries. Jack, however, also had the opportunity to work a variety of security missions and building partner capacity missions out of Europe, Japan, Antarctica and various West African nations. The organization he predominantly worked for is known as Sea Shepherd Global, a conservation based organization. He worked in this community from 2013 to 2020, with COVID playing a role in his departure. With COVID policies being enacted, many Americans working abroad soon became worried about being trapped abroad, unable to return home.
“You know, my wife and I, who I met while working for Sea Shepherd Global, we just didn’t want to risk what was potentially coming with the COVID restrictions. We moved to Washington, in the woods but close enough to Portland. That’s when we started Guerrilla Tactical. Guerrilla Tactical is a holster and gear manufacturing company, we look to facilitate the equipping and training of responsible citizens so they may better defend themselves.”
Jack continued expanding his business throughout the years as COVID died down. Things would change in early 2022 though, the cogs of war turning, prompting Jack to take another trip to a conflict zone. Jack had some contacts he had known for years, guys who fought in Syria alongside the YPG International forces, Kurdish forces who were fighting ISIL who had since gone to Ukraine during the War in the Donbas. He continued keeping in touch with them through the years, and reached out directly as Russian forces began building up around the Ukrainian border in the north, the south and east. His friends would soon find themselves no longer fighting separatists, but instead fighting a conventional Russian force. Like many people, Jack watched closely to social media feeds who were monitoring the build up and rumor began to spread that at 0400 local time on February 24th, Russians would cross the line of departure. At 9PM EST and 6PM PST Americans watched as videos rapidly came out showing strikes across the country, reports of increased fighting, armored columns and firefights.
“… having friends there, you know I had been to Ukraine, it’s a beautiful country and beautiful people. I felt I needed to do something, anything to help, so we just started planning as best we could with contacts we had. By late March, beginning of April we were in Poland. We worked in different areas for a total of 2 1/2 weeks. We worked with refugees at a center in Warsaw for a little, and then went to the border and began working out of a border town called Medyka. We distributed food, clothing, helped with logistics, did border runs with supplies, provided direct medical assistance to anyone who had any issues and also at times did security at some of the refugee tents.”
As with any war, there are those who are willing to help, and those looking to exploit. The need for security at refugee centers grew as the numbers of refugees grew but also as individuals with nefarious intent began preying on those centers. As most Ukrainian men were expected to stay in the country and fight, the refugees were primarily women and children, often unaccompanied and vulnerable, resulting in issues with human trafficking and sex trafficking. Jack and those with him watched as scores of people with nothing more than what they could carry walked across the border after having traveled miles and in some cases days on foot, fleeing from their war torn country.
“There was a woman I remember, this sticks out to me a lot, who was probably in her late 60s to 70s who had walked for the days to get to the border. She had walked for two days straight while barefoot. We wanted to get her shoes, so we asked her for her size and ran to one of the clothing distribution areas to get boots. When we brought them to her though, her feet were so swollen that they just didn’t fit. She needed two sizes bigger than her normal size to fit in. There was also another woman who sticks out in my mind. This was in one of the refugee areas, she was in front of her tent with her kids when she got a phone call and collapsed to her knees. She began crying and sobbing uncontrollably. We ran over to help and brought a translator who began speaking with her. She had just gotten a call from her uncle saying that her husband, who was a soldier, had been killed by a mortar.”
Despite the desire to stay longer, Jack and his team retrograded back to the United States after 2 1/2 weeks. That short time in itself was enough to lend a perspective of the war very few have seen in person. It is an eerie thing to see as scores of women and children come across the border without their men, to see miles-long lines of cars and trails of humans walking on foot, fleeing their homeland. Americans in large have not felt this side of war in a very long time. Jack was burdened by a feeling many who have worked in these occupations or environments know all too well. The feeling of not having done enough. The urge to do more, to help more.
“I just felt I hadn’t done enough. I went home, and just kept watching the war unfold, knowing I had friends there, feeling like I needed to help out just as a human. So we started planning again.”
Odesa: The Midnight Train
“… We had a Ukrainian Territorial Defense unit hit us up asking about training, seeing if we could train them in country. They gave us a background of these guys, the amount of training and gear they’d received, man they were ill prepared and under-equipped. The unit was in Odesa and was going to be folded into the Ukrainian military, soon to be sent to the front. We started working with Grizzly Medical to develop a curriculum. Then we started gathering as much supplies as we could gather to fit these guys with IFAKs and basic casualty care items they’d need at the front. Altogether we gathered around $7,000-$8,000 worth of medical supplies before we started our trip.”
Jack and the team at Grizzly Medical worked intensely to plan this mission before executing. Despite the extensive planning, plans shortly fell through once in country. The driver who had been assigned to help them had bailed due to fuel shortages. Russian forces were targeting infrastructure and due to the logistical issues, fuel shortages were affecting much of the nation, with the Ukrainian armed forces being prioritized for receiving those resources. A cross-country train to Odesa would be the only option for them.
“It was pretty eerie. Most of the trains were scheduled at night and entirely blacked out to avoid being a target. By this time there had been at least one strike against a train station. We didn’t know if we’d be targeted, we knew the Russians were targeting different infrastructures during this time. The train would make random stops throughout the night, nobody leaving their cabin, nobody talking, sometimes it would last 5 minutes, other times 30 minutes or so. You just tried to sleep, and eventually we did. We woke up once we reached Odesa.”
Odesa was for the most part had not endured the war the same as other cities of Ukraine. Though no front line fighting was done in or around Odesa, it did remain under missile and drone attack fairly regularly, with a heavy emphasis on strikes against the infrastructure that powered and supported the city. Odesa is a city critical to the nation as well, a large port city it was suspected that Russian forces may conduct a large scale amphibious assault from the black sea. This prompted Ukrainian forces to began fortifying defenses in and around the city. This led to photos and videos that many likened to those out of World War 2 - beaches laden with tank traps, landmines and sand bag machine gun positions. Russian warships could be seen on the horizon. The people of the city and its defenders were living in the shadow of a potential invasion.
“Odesa was one of those cities where you could go down to the boardwalk, see the beach, truly in a beautiful city, get food from a local vendor, turn around and see a warning sign for landmines, see a cruise missile fly overhead and hear air raid sirens really all in one tiny little area and all in five minutes. The cruise missiles usually came at night, but I remember one time we were in the apartment we had been put up in, it was still day and I watched it go right over our building. A few seconds went by and boom. The windows, walls, everything shook, car alarms were going off, there was a big plume of smoke coming from a church building a few blocks away. A few days earlier to this, there was a similar strike that happened, a missile strike which hit an apartment building, killing a baby.”
The group secured living quarters in the city instead of staying on or near the base and would be picked up every morning by the troops and dropped off every night. The Guerrilla Tactical and Grizzly Medical group worked extensively with the Ukrainian Territorial Defense unit to provide them need to know information and training pertinent to increasing their survivability on the battlefield that they simply hadn’t been taught yet. They delved into TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care) modules with the soldiers day and night. Through their two weeks of training they were able to spin up over 100 Ukrainian soldiers who had zero prior training or knowledge on basic combat medicine as well as fully train with confidence at least 15 combat medics. With the medical supplies they brought in, they outfitted the unit with as many basic individual first aid kits and items they could.
“We really hammered these guys with as much as we could in those 2 weeks. We did what we could with the time we had. 80-90% of those guys have since gotten folded into units and rotated to various parts of the front. We all wish we could have stayed longer, and I often think about going back, we have responsibilities here in the United States though. It was short, but also a very rewarding experience. Every once in awhile I’ll get a text or photo from one of the guys we trained saying how the training or gear we gave them kept them alive, that’s a feeling you can’t replicate. On our way out we stopped in Poland for a few days to decompress and get right. I’d like to come back, but we’ll see…”