Why a U.S. Marine fought — and died — for Ukraine
On Thanksgiving morning 2025, Shane Tackett texted his wife to say he was heading out on a mission and would be gone for a couple of days. He was killed three days later, on Nov. 30, in the basement of a house his unit was clearing in a contested town in Ukraine.
Tackett, 36, was a former U.S. Marine from Prague, Oklahoma, who had been looking for a way to fight for Ukraine since the first weeks of the full-scale invasion. It took him three years to find one. He arrived in Ukraine on Aug. 6, 20
