Everything he and other Canadian combat veterans had fought for seemed to have been washed away in the wake of the Taliban takeover – a brutal event after two decades of uninterrupted guerrilla warfare.
The resident of BC he was just coming to terms with his frustration when Russian tanks roared across the Ukrainian border last winter.
“I remember some of the images that came out of Bucha and in particular an image of a child who had died,” Lowe said, referring to the Kiev suburb that has been the source of widespread reports of Russian troops killing civilians. “It brought me back to some of those experiences I had in Afghanistan.”
The images, he said, made him “quite upset and angry.” There was sadness, mixed with a bit of guilt—a sense that somehow he hadn’t done enough to help.
But what could he do?
A choice between despair and hope
“I knew, at some point, that I had to make a choice between being angry and miserable about what was happening to innocent people, or whether I was going to make a difference myself,” Lowe told CBC News. Former Cpl. John Lowe rests during an operation March 23, 2010, in Panjwaii, Afghanistan. (Murray Brewster/Canadian Press) He chose to make a difference. In late winter, Lowe went door-to-door in clinics in Chilliwack, BC, collecting medical supplies for civilian Ukrainian hospitals. His efforts were rewarded with a few boxes of gauze. But Lowe collected business cards and persisted. Research excess and waste in Canadian hospitals. She wrote letters to health care facilities and assisted living homes. Joining forces with other veterans and volunteers under the banner of the non-profit HERO Society – a group started by another former Canadian soldier, Steve Krsnik – the floodgates began to open. WATCHES | Combat veteran John Lowe explains why he is sending medical supplies to Ukraine:
What inspired a Canadian veteran to help Ukraine
Retired Corporal John Lowe chose action over anger, which led him to collect and deliver medical aid to Ukraine. Soon they were stocking up on tourniquets, Quikclot, thermal imaging and lots of bandages, said Lowe, who added that the initial focus was on medical supplies “requested by soldiers on the front lines.” They proceeded to collect sheets and medical hand tools. The HERO Society and Lowe’s were only able to fill a few suitcases at first. In late spring they started running in Ukraine, where more volunteers on the ground helped distribute supplies to hospitals. Lowe personally delivered 26 bags in June. Donations continued to pour in throughout the summer. Lowe and the other volunteers began receiving donations of bigger things: hospital gurneys, stretchers and sophisticated monitoring equipment, items that had been decommissioned by local health authorities but were still in good condition.
Connections in Kyiv
Suddenly, they needed a sea container to move everything. Enter Roman Sawychy, consultant, business executive and president of Ukraine-Canada Social Services in Vancouver. He has deep ties in Kyiv that go back decades. Sawychy has sent five containers of humanitarian supplies to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion. He had seen firsthand the condition of hospitals in eastern Ukraine. When the HERO Society asked him for help, he said he was on board right away. Last weekend in the Abbotsford, BC area, a 40-foot shipping container was loaded with medical supplies collected by HERO volunteers for Ukraine. Sawychy said he hopes it’s the first of many. “As long as they supply equipment, we will continue to ship that equipment,” he said. The container will travel overland to Halifax, where it will be loaded onto a container ship bound for Poland and then transported to the Ukrainian border. At some point, the mission will have to be broken up into individual deliveries. The entire trip is expected to take a few weeks. Another Canadian, 27-year-old Alex Nau, is waiting to receive the content in Ukraine. The Regina resident put his graduate studies in computer science on hold to volunteer in the war-torn country. It is helping to transport supplies and food to some of the hardest hit areas of Ukraine. One such place is Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, which has been under constant shelling since February. Another is Zaporizhzhia, a southern city that has at times been flooded with displaced civilians seeking safety and is now on the brink of a possible nuclear disaster as fighting rages around a nearby reactor plant. WATCHES | A Canadian volunteer admires the cruelty of the Ukrainians:
A Canadian volunteer admires the resilience of Ukrainians
Canadian HERO Society volunteer Alex Nau says he is deeply impressed by the ability of Ukrainians to carry on with normal life in a war zone. He said he has nothing but admiration for the Ukrainians. “I can’t believe how strong some people can be … that people can still live in this and live through shelling all the time,” Nau told CBC News from Kharkiv. The strain showed on Nau’s face as he told CBC News about the dangers of delivering supplies to bombed hospitals and clinics. That stress is taking its toll, he said — but he doesn’t want to leave until he knows the network he and others have built will be able to carry on without him.
Support for evacuation
“I usually wake up at 7 or 8 before mission days… [I] I woke up at 6am the other day because there were bombs about five kilometers away,” he said. “The night before, I woke up at 4 a.m. — two explosions very, very close… We had to prepare for a possible evacuation, and that happens quite often. “And when the bombs go off during the day, it’s not too scary. Like, I use to run around in the middle of the night and you wake up and you don’t want to get out of bed but you have to… That can be pretty scary sometimes.” Still, Nau said it’s worth it. It’s also appreciated, said Vitaly Lynycky, a former web developer who acts as Nau’s Ukrainian translator and guide. The two recently returned to the rundown Kharkiv neighborhood where Lynycky grew up to deliver food. “I know every inch of this place,” he told CBC News, adding that medical supplies en route now are desperately needed. “Many hospitals [are] bombarded and medics [still] some operations have to be done in hospitals,” Lynycky said. Hospitals, he said, are “very busy” these days.
