By Andy Brack | As you enjoy friends and family in the warmth of your homes across South Carolina during the holidays, let’s not forget freedom fighters in Ukraine.
Too often, children and adults are cold. Temperatures through the end of the year will be much like they are here – highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s. Across all of Ukraine, people are subject to blackouts, food shortages and periodic shelling from rockets or drones.
Yet they fight on, demoralizing Vladimir Putin’s Russian troops.
And they’ll keep fighting, Charleston resident Jamie Price will tell you at the drop of a hat. Since the fight began earlier this year, he’s been to the region twice for two months each. And the stories of resilience, courage and the love of freedom that he tells make you wonder how we can do more.
“These people are the strongest, most focused people I’ve ever seen,” said Price, a 74-year-old former developer. “It reminds me of America in the 1950s.”
They’re focused, en masse, because they want to keep their freedom. They don’t want their longtime pesky and contentious neighbor, Russia, to take away the democratic life that they’ve passionately embraced.
During Price’s first trip from April to June, he was focused on two things – figuring out how to help the thousands of kids orphaned during the war and filming what was happening that you don’t see on the nightly news.
“What I want the film to be is to show what’s really going on because what you see on the news is not what’s going on,” he said earlier this month when back in Charleston. “They’re really tough. I want people to see how they’re handling it. They’re amazing.”
Back home over the summer, he said he raised $22,000 to buy equipment that soldiers need. He said the U.S. government sends weapons and missiles, but the armed forces need much more gear to be able to keep up the day-to-day conflict.
“I went to friends and raised money to get a couple of drones, body armor, night-vision scopes and medical supplies.” In October, he took 10 suitcases filled with supplies. Drones later were rigged to be able to drop explosives.
During his latest visit, he recalled spending a lot of time with a fighting unit of about 30 soldiers.
“I’m now attached to them,” he said. “They accepted me. I slept in their safe houses. I slept on floors. There’s nothing I didn’t do with them.”
Throughout it all, he filmed using two high-resolution phones and a vest camera. Now, he is working on finishing a documentary before heading back sometime in the new year to continue to help.
He recalled a scene of war devastation in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv where hundreds of bodies were found on streets, in buildings and in makeshift graves, according to The New York Times..
“I’m videoing the street where 104 Russians were killed and 10 tanks and 15 vehicles blown up. I looked down this one driveway and this one lady was planting flowers. So, of course, I had to talk with her.”
He found out that she was working to get life back to normal, even though she and her husband had been living in the cellar of their destroyed home.
Price now is trying to raise about $30,000 before he returns. On his third trip, he wants to buy a couple of used vehicles to allow soldiers who have become friends to be able to get around better.
Price keeps up with his group of soldiers via texts. And these days, he ends text messages with the phrase, “Slava Ukraine,” which means “Glory to Ukraine.”
NOTE: Price doesn’t have a nonprofit for donations because he says it’s difficult to set up one if you’re benefiting a war zone. If you want to donate, you can send a check to the Charleston City Paper with a memo note “Ukraine.” Address: P.O. Box 21942, Charleston, SC 29413. We’ll make sure he gets it.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!