American blood spilt on Ukrainian soil: how Keith Kellogg's daughter, Meaghan Mobbs, is giving names back to those who fell in Ukraine
On 11 September 2001, American software engineer Grady Kurpasi, then 29, heard the news that two planes had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. He dropped everything and set out on foot from Queens, New York, to Lower Manhattan. That was where his partner, Heeson, should have been – right at the epicentre of the attacks.
Heeson survived. But that day, and his desperate search for her, changed Grady's destiny. He decided to leave his computing career behind and join the United States Marine Corps. He became an officer, served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was wounded in action, and was awarded a Purple Heart.
In September 2021, after 20 years of service to the American people, Captain Kurpasi retired. It seemed the time had finally come for him to return to civilian life.
But soon afterwards, the world was shaken by the news of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kurpasi decided that his experience could be of real use on Ukrainian soil. By March 2022 he was already fighting Russian forces in the city of Irpin, near Kyiv. In April he came under Russian fire while on a mission in Kherson Oblast. The last soldier to see him alive was later taken prisoner by the Russians.
Kurpasi's fate remained unknown for more than a year. In the spring of 2023, his story came to the attention of Meaghan Mobbs, the daughter of Keith Kellogg, US President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser and Special Envoy on Ukraine.
The story was close to Mobbs' heart, and not only because Kurpasi was American: he had also been a Pat Tillman Foundation Scholar in 2009, just as she had been four years later.
Determined to find out what had happened to Kurpasi, Mobbs began to investigate with the help of the staff at the American charity she heads – the R.T. Weatherman Foundation.
The R.T. Weatherman Foundation was set up by two Americans, Elizabeth Weatherman and Andrew Duncan. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, it has focused on supporting Ukrainians through humanitarian programmes. To date, it has delivered more than US$150 million worth of aid.
This article aims to highlight the Foundation's work.
And the story of Grady Kurpasi illustrates the Foundation's guiding principle: figuring out where the gaps are and filling them.
By the spring of 2023, the Foundation was tackling other large-scale projects, setting up a logistics hub on the Romanian-Ukrainian border that delivered over 10,000 pallets of aid to more than 70 humanitarian organisations in Ukraine.
Iryna Khoroshaieva was a member of the team working on these projects, delivering aid to beneficiaries and often travelling to places described as "difficult and frightening". She got involved in the search for Kurpasi.
"We were like blind kittens when we started out. It was just a one-off case that had to be taken up, completed, closed and forgotten," Iryna recalls.
One day, her search led her to a morgue in Mykolaiv which contained soldiers' remains that had been recovered after the liberation of part of Kherson Oblast – the very place where Kurpasi's unit had fought its final battle.
Amongst them, Iryna found body armour marked with his call sign.
But this was only part of the task. The next step was to confirm the identity of the remains through DNA testing. Then came the challenge of contacting Kurpasi's family, who had received many false reports about what had happened to him in the meantime, and finally, arranging the repatriation of his body.
"At one point she [his wife] said she knew that Grady was gone. I think when you have a loved one, you know that they're not there. But they had a 13-year-old daughter. They had a young daughter at the time. For the purposes of closure, the ability to lay all of that to rest was so critically important for this family," Mobbs recalls. She was with Kurpasi's family at the airport in North Carolina when his coffin finally came home.
But Kurpasi's case wasn't unique. Other families of foreign fighters missing or fallen in Ukraine needed help too, so the R.T. Weatherman Foundation set up a dedicated programme to support them.
Khoroshaieva no longer works on aid deliveries. Her mission now is to search for, identify and repatriate the bodies of those who were not born in Ukraine but gave their lives for it.
"We don't want an American mother saying Ukraine doesn't care about her fallen son"
Through its MIA/KIA Programme, the R.T. Weatherman Foundation is now supporting over 100 individual cases of soldiers from 27 countries. Its team works to identify fighters who were previously listed as missing, repatriate the fallen, and provide legal assistance to their families.
In addition to the humanitarian aspect, another issue is that Ukraine's reputation is at stake here. Ukraine is at war and does not have the resources to maintain constant communication with foreign soldiers' families or provide the help they need.
"Unfortunately, the reality also is that road maps look different for different countries, meaning the legal process is different for countries," Meaghan explains. "We cover over 27 countries. I can't possibly expect the Ukrainian government to figure out the ins and outs of 27 different nations, the process of repatriation, or legal benefits, notary services, DNA sampling. And again, they [officials] certainly don't have time to spend two, three, four hours on the phone with every person that has their family member killed and walking them through the process.
Many of our foreign families have said, 'We want to go to the media and talk about our experience.' And sometimes it's not been a positive experience, particularly in America, where you want to understand the current political situation… What we don't want is an American mother going on national television crying and saying: 'Ukraine doesn't care about my fallen son.' And so we have made sure that they know that their son, their husband – that loss was not in vain, and that people deeply, deeply care about their sacrifice."
Raquel Hamm, a teacher from San Antonio, Texas, calls the Foundation "a ray of light" and "my eyes on Ukrainian soil". Yet she admits she was deeply sceptical at first. And understandably so: she had lost her son, her pride and joy, Cedric, who had excelled at mathematics at school but ultimately chose a military career.
Cedric was killed defending Ukraine in March last year. His body could not be found. Then Raquel came across fellow Texan Lauren Guillaume, Director of Programmes at the Weatherman Foundation, who told her: "Don't lose hope, we will help you find your son." In fact, Raquel had already given up hope. "Well then, first I want to know your success rate," she replied.
Lauren continued writing to her from Kyiv, arranging online calls and encouraging her to provide a DNA sample so that Cedric's remains could be identified if found.
"When the school year ended, my daughter said: 'Please, Mom, do the DNA test for me. Do it, it will make me feel better.' So I went to do it, but I thought to myself: 'This is one of the most pointless things I've ever done – giving DNA. I see no meaning in it. He's gone.' In my head, I had already accepted that I would never receive his remains, that he was gone," Raquel recalls.
But in October, while working at the Foundation's office in Vinnytsia, Lauren was scrolling through photographs of human remains recovered from the battlefields when suddenly her finger froze on one of the images. She recognised a tattoo that was so distinctive, it was impossible to forget.
It was Cedric Hamm.
Cedric, who had read The Diary of Anne Frank in eighth grade and understood there was evil in the world that had to be stopped. Cedric, who had joined the US Army after school and risen to the rank of staff sergeant in six years. Cedric, who had planned to train Ukrainian troops at a military base in Poland, but decided just two weeks later that his place was at the front line. Cedric, who, when wounded in his last battle, had urged his fellow soldier to leave him behind and save himself before more Russian drones arrived.
Cedric was wounded in the leg in that last battle. His comrade applied a tourniquet. When his body was eventually identified in the morgue, Raquel found some solace in learning that the tourniquet had been expertly applied and was still in place. Perhaps for her it was proof that the people around him had done everything they could to save her son's life.
"I knew Ukraine was going to fight"
Meaghan Mobbs is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. She served in Afghanistan in an air supply unit and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. She is the president of the R.T. Weatherman Foundation. These are her own words.
I actually fell in love with Ukraine when I was 10. I was given a project in elementary school: you had to pick a country that you wanted to present to your class, and I picked Ukraine. It was 1996 or 1997. And you hear the typical things in America like: "bread basket of Europe", "it's a new young country". And I presented it to my class and I remember thinking "This is such a cool country." It has all this opportunity ahead of it... It was on the sea, and it had grain, and the people had lovely costumes and flowers in their hair. So for me it was just exciting. It was the idea of the promise of the birth of something new.
I served in Afghanistan, and watching our government pull out in the manner that it did for many veterans felt just like there was a kind of rupture of our souls. And I can remember many conversations about how wrong it is for our government to lie to people, to say that we're going to be there, that we're going to show up, and then when it's actually time for that to happen, we do the opposite, we leave.
So when the full-scale invasion happened, I had friends at the time that were working in the Biden administration, I had friends that were still in the military, and all of them to a person said: "We're going to leave. We're actually not going to stay. We're going to pull out of Ukraine and let it kind of come what may."
The two founders, Elizabeth Weatherman and Andrew Duncan, who I was working on Afghanistan with said: "No, we can't do this, we can't abandon Ukraine, we have to find a way to get involved." And that's when we got involved, in 2022.
In February, when I saw that the [Russian] build-up on the border was happening, all the pundits on TV were saying that this invasion is going to happen, and the "three days to Kyiv" was a popular thing to say back then.
It's easy for me to say this now, but I knew Ukraine was going to fight.
My dad was talking to John Roberts, a Fox News TV host. He was not talking to him on the air, it was a conversation on the side. My dad said to him, "Listen, John, this invasion is going to happen." Other pundits were saying it wasn't. They were either saying that the invasion's going to happen and Ukraine is going to fall, or they were saying the invasion is not going to happen, this is just a bellicose action by Russia. Dad was the only one behind the scenes that pulled up a map, showed it to John Roberts, and said that the invasion is happening and that all the indicators are there – all the military markers were showing it. He was also the person to say that Ukraine is going to fight.
The very beginning for me was maybe like a love affair with Ukraine – it was short, sweet, and powerful. And now it's like this enduring relationship. American blood has been spilt on Ukrainian soil. These countries are tied together forever. And I think I see our work in the foundation as enduring. We're not just here waiting for the end – whatever that may be. We're dealing with a whole spectrum of emotions, but we want to see Ukraine not just survive but to thrive.
This is my 26th trip to Ukraine. I have two daughters. It's always harder to explain to young children when you're going to be gone – especially as a mother – for any significant period of time. But I had always talked to them – and I still do – about believing in something bigger than yourself.
Giving names back to the fallen
The R.T. Weatherman Foundation programme supporting the families of fallen soldiers is closely linked to another of its initiatives – identifying those killed in action. The Foundation establishes the identities of fallen soldiers who cannot be identified by DNA alone. It funds a team of Ukrainian forensic experts and criminal investigators who have developed a new identification method and provide training to forensic agencies across Ukraine.
In short, they give names back to the fallen.
"[Extracting] bone DNA is a complex process," Iryna Khoroshaieva says. "The bone is ground into powder and mixed with a special solution that dissolves the minerals and releases the DNA from the cells. It takes time to get results. When I asked experts in Dnipro how many of these complex tests they can do in a month, they said only ten. We did some research, travelled to different regions, and have introduced necrodactyloscopy – a fingerprinting method for the deceased in critical conditions."
Fingerprint recognition is far simpler than DNA testing and its results leave no room for doubt. In many countries this is the standard and often the priority procedure for identifying the dead, but not in Ukraine, where a fingerprint match has no legal weight without DNA verification. As a result, laboratories have huge backlogs and families of fallen defenders can wait months for the bodies of their loved ones.
The failure to resolve this issue could be due to the economic implications, since officially recognising thousands of fallen soldiers simultaneously would mean the appropriate social benefits would need to be paid.
The Foundation is working to change this by supporting lawyers who are drafting proposed legislative amendments.
"It's horrible to look at a cemetery [where the graves are marked only] with numbers," says Khoroshaieva. "You realise that you can't call anyone by their name, but these are your boys, these are your girls. When a name is returned – yes, it is deeply painful for the family, but the truth is worth having. Knowing that later you can come and say 'Hello, how are you?' to your fallen one and light them a cigarette, pour them a beer."
"Ukraine is like Normandy. American lives are buried here again"
Andrew Duncan, co-founder of the R.T. Weatherman Foundation, says:
"Our foundation was not created for politics or meetings with high-ranking officials. We do not work to make names for ourselves in press releases or photographs with presidents. Our mission is very specific and simple: to protect the children of Ukraine and those who defend them. This is the core of our work, our identity and our purpose.
Our teams see death every day, speak with families of the fallen and face grief. They go through morgues with hundreds of bodies and train medics on the front line, knowing these medics will go into battle and may not return. This is not easy to endure. But we stay focused: children, their defenders and the programmes that truly change lives.
I believe that part of our legacy will be fostering a culture of honouring the fallen in Ukraine. Today, unfortunately, you do not yet have time for this because the country lives in the midst of catastrophe. But I know from other wars: without this, a society leaves itself with a wound that never heals. I always remember Steven Spielberg, who created the USC Shoah Foundation to record testimonies of the Holocaust. This war must also be documented, the truth must not be erased.
I find my motivation in my family. My father fought in the Second World War and my mother once took me to Berlin to show what freedom means. I saw the difference between freedom and communism. On the night when the Berlin Wall fell, my mother died. It was 1989. That date has stayed in my heart as a proof: freedom and loss always go hand in hand.
My father built steel plants around the world, including in Ukraine. I grew up seeing the Soviet system and sensing the chill of the war and ironically – the 'iron curtain'.
I know for certain: freedom is never free. Today I can look children in the eyes and say I have done everything possible to stop the invasion of European democracy. Ukraine is like Normandy. American lives are buried here again, just as they were in France. There is no difference."
"I wanted to blow myself up, but I had nothing to do it with"
The soldiers had agreed: if anyone was wounded on the way, it would be every man for himself.
This was not surprising – they were exhausted and under relentless fire. Major Mykhailo Yavorskyi and his brothers-in-arms had held their position in Kharkiv Oblast for 12 days. For the final three days no food or water could reach them. By then, the officer had counted around 500 explosions in the vicinity.
Now, having realised that another day at the position would mean certain death, the group had decided to retreat. All were concussed and several wounded. First they had to get through a 400-metre stretch to a neighbouring position, then a kilometre and a half to the rear.
"An old man, well not really old, just a lad of 59, stepped on a mine and it blew up. And I felt so sorry for him. So even though we'd agreed that each of us would fend for himself, I put him on my shoulders and tried to carry him," Yavorskyi recalls. "I managed for a while, but I was completely spent. I said: 'Mate, I can't carry you any further.' I called for help, the lads ran over with a stretcher…".
That was the moment a Russian drone spotted them. The ground exploded under Yavorskyi's feet. He felt a brutal blow to his jaw, legs and arm. Stunned, he tried to run and realised he was running on his bare bones. He fell, crawled under a tree, and put tourniquets below both his knees.
"So I'm just lying there. My rifle's gone and I have no grenades left," Yavorskyi continues. "Before I was wounded I used to think, if you've lost limbs, what's the point in going on living? Better to blow yourself up. But I had no gun to shoot myself with. So I loosened the tourniquets and thought I'd bleed out and that would be it.
But my mates found me. They re-applied the tourniquets and began the evacuation."
Yavorskyi is a border guard with 23 years of service. A keen sportsman, he played beach volleyball in the veterans' league. He spoke to Ukrainska Pravda from the Netherlands, where he is receiving treatment after both his legs were amputated and he underwent major surgery on his jaw.
Now his story isn't about loosening the tourniquets, but about coming back to life.
"Mykhailo sends me videos of himself swimming in a pool in the Netherlands and he says we've sent him to paradise. And I think: thank God we can give this kind of help to our soldiers," says Roman Zhura, who runs the WIA Programme at the R.T. Weatherman Foundation.
Under this programme, the Foundation helps wounded soldiers from Ukraine – both Ukrainian citizens and foreign volunteers – to travel to leading trauma clinics in Europe. Treatment, prosthetics and rehabilitation are covered by the host country. The Foundation handles the paperwork, makes the soldiers' travel arrangements, and coordinates their access to treatment abroad. Over 140 soldiers have benefited from this support.
Zhura says his "office" is Ukrainian hospitals. Every day he travels from one to another searching for those in need of treatment in Europe. At the start of the full-scale invasion he served in the territorial defence, but he admits he lacked the courage to carry a gun. He decided instead to help the defence forces in a different role, although he still feels guilty every day that he isn't in uniform himself.
The criteria for evacuation abroad are set out in Order No. 574 of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. But also required are the patient's consent, the doctor's approval and, crucially, the awareness that this option exists.
"I have one big weakness: I can't say no to a soldier," Zhura admits. "I will try to fight for him until the very end."
***
If you ask Iryna Khoroshaieva how she feels when she's looking for fallen soldiers, she says there's a beast gnawing at her from inside, repeating over and over: "You're not doing enough, you're not doing enough, you're not doing enough."
She says her colleagues feel the same.
Khoroshaieva was recently searching for three soldiers who were killed in a village that was later captured by Russia. The Russians returned the bodies of two of them. She can't find the third. Now she sees his call sign everywhere, and the soldier appears in her dreams.
A memorial to fallen fighters has been created in Kyiv's Independence Square. Among the thousands of flags are some that were put there in memory of soldiers whom Khoroshaieva and her colleagues have managed to find and identify.
Khoroshaieva's search for fallen soldiers began with Captain Grady Kurpasi. Speaking about that first case, she thinks back to one day in particular.
The Foundation had identified Kurpasi and completed the paperwork. Iryna collected his remains from the morgue in Mykolaiv and placed them on the back seat of the car to take them to Odesa for repatriation. She got in and sat next to the driver.
As the car moved off, she suddenly had a nagging feeling that someone was sitting behind her. No one was there, yet she felt a presence out of the corner of her eye.
Then she understood.
"You know," she said to the driver, "Grady has just taken one step closer to returning home."
Authors: Rustem Khalilov, Sevgil Musaieva, Ukrainska Pravda
Translation: Tetiana Buchkovska, Ganna (Anna) Bryedova
Editing: Teresa Pearce