Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 167 continued ... “Within about five days of telling them, 'Yup, I want to go,' I was in Ukraine,” said Rekunyk, who ended up fighting with an organization similar to ILDU made up of soldiers from Canada, the U.S., Britain and elsewhere. He said the group was independent from the Ukrainian army, but the country's military knew they were there and gave them supplies. After landing at a safe house in Lviv, in western Ukraine, Rekunyk travelled to a base of operations in Dnipro and eventually to the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russia was focusing much of its attack. The first week he heard air raid sirens almost every night but it was relatively quiet in terms of fighting, said Rekunyk. “But the second week, kind of that Monday local time, Ukraine ... it all kind of started off. It was absolute chaos and hell on earth,” he said. Rekunyk previously spent 15 years in the Canadian Army, including with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, but said he's never experienced the “World War II-esque” style of combat he saw in Ukraine where it was just soldier after soldier coming at a person. “There's no amount of training and no amount of psychological build up that can really, I would argue, prep you for what comes.” About 72 hours after Russia began its assault on the region of Donetsk and Luhansk, Rekunyk was injured and made the decision to travel home to Nova Scotia to get medical care. Because he wasn't part of the ILDU, he wasn't able to go to a military hospital in Ukraine. “I haven't yet fully processed just how truly blessed and lucky I am. It will sink in, but it hasn't yet,” he said. For Rekunyk, fighting for Ukraine has given him a new sense of belonging and connection to his heritage. “I want to reconnect with that a lot more now ... picking up language courses so I can learn the Ukrainian language a lot better and kind of get back in touch with those roots,” he said. But he also wants other Canadians to think very carefully about what joining the war effort means. He has a 12-year-old son he feared he wouldn't see again. Rekunyk said there were many tears and hugs when he reunited with his 12-year-old son. When the two reunited at the end of April, “it was just tears, a huge hug, and he was just really, really happy I was home and safe,” Rekunyk said. He plans to return to Ukraine when he's strong enough, but for now, he's not thinking that far into the future. “Right now, it's more focusing just on spending time with him here and now,” he said. A Ukrainian serviceman walks near the position he was guarding in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 12, 2022. (Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press)
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