US Army Veteran killed in Ukraine fighting

Trent Davis joined the Georgian Legion in Ukraine to help the Ukrainians in their fight against the Russians. They did not send him to the front as he lacked the necessary experience. Later in the year, he joined the International Legion and was killed on his first mission.

The Army Times described Davis as inexperienced, as never making a deployment, and as getting out as a private. A search for “Trent Davis” in the Army White Pages provided multiple results, one of them being for a PV1, or E1.

From the Army Times:

Davis joined the International Legion out of a sense of duty, he told family members, and was eager to help Ukrainians repel the Russian invasion that began last February. After a stint with a smaller foreign volunteer outfit that declined to send the inexperienced Davis to the front in the spring — he never deployed as a U.S. soldier — the hopeful volunteer found a more willing unit with the International Legion this fall.

“He wanted to do his part to bring kids into a safer world, even if it could cause him to sacrifice his life,” said Davis’ mother, Janie Broadbent. “He said Russians are pretty much bullies, and he just wanted to help people.”

That’s why he went to Ukraine, she said — not once, but twice.

On Nov. 4, a couple of weeks after he returned to Ukraine from the U.S., where he spent a few months at home with his loved ones, he called his mom to share the good news — he signed a contract and was now officially part of the International Legion. Davis was overjoyed, she said in an interview with Military Times. He told her that he would soon be heading out to join the counteroffensive in the south of Ukraine.

But Davis never got to see the fruits of his labor — the triumphant yellow-banded troops moving into Kherson, the country’s only regional capital to have been seized by Russian forces and subsequently liberated last week. He didn’t get to feel the flood of appreciation for troops like him who helped bring about that freedom.

“He would look me dead in the eye and say I’m invincible,” Davis’ father, Christopher Davis, said about his playful, yet stubborn, son. “He had that young-man confidence. He believed it and he made me believe it.”

As a combat veteran himself who spent 21 years in the U.S. Army, “I should have known better,” the elder Davis said. “The enemy gets a vote no matter what you plan.”

The Army Times has additional information here.

Category: Veterans in the news