We’re going back, to Ukraine, War is raging
- October 8, 2024
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Blog by Stephen (Sammy) Byrne
Here we go again. With just a few days to go we are all feeling a mixture of anxiety and exhilaration. There are so some many things that can go wrong. This is a worry keeping most of us awake at night, yet the adrenalin is also kicking in, the sense of adventure.
Travelling into a country at war is daunting, especially for our drivers on their first trip. Yet war is overwhelming the world and the feeling amongst the team is one of hope, trying to make a small difference, wanting to show our support to the Ukrainian people.
We departed on 26th September 2024, 21 drivers, 7 jeeps, an ambulance, a truck and a minibus. All of the vehicles are filled with medical supplies and other urgently needed equipment that will help save lives and support local people.
In Ukraine the primary function of the jeeps is to ferry injured soldiers from the frontline to trauma hospitals, about 5km behind the fighting. Each jeep will last on average only 90 days before they break up or are blown up.
The Ambulance is being donated to a hospital in Kolomaya. It is full of urgently needed trauma equipment, drugs, surgical supplies and bandages.
The truck is being given over to a local Ukrainian charity Breaking the Chains, which rescues injured and abandoned animals inside the war zone. The mostly dogs and cats housed in the sanctuary are also helping to rehabilitate seriously injured soldiers. The truck is packed with veterinary and animal supplies and foodstuffs, also rehabilitation equipment for the injured soldiers.
The minibus is being donated to an orphanage near Lviv supported by Irish Charity Effective Aid Ukraine. There are over 80 residents living there, all special needs, boys from 5 to adult. The minibus is jammed, floor to ceiling with winter clothes, shoes, foodstuffs, sanitary & hygiene goods, tools for maintaining the orphanage and some crafts & toys.
All of the vehicles and contents have been very generously donated by Irish hospitals, medical practices, businesses, private individuals, and the traveling team of drivers, over €500,000 in total value.
We all meet up in St. Patricks Church in Greystones and are given a wonderful send off from the primary school children who present us with good luck drawings and some inspiring posters, messages of hope we will bring to the children in Rozdil, Ukraine.
Canon David Mungavin and Fr. Des Hayden bless the drivers, two men building Christian bridges between their respective church communities.
The singer Nathan Johnston lifted the crowd with one of his own antiwar songs Patriots and Saints followed by the Bob Dylan anthem Masters of War, which the children loudly clapped along to. The music, the blessing heightened our emotions, a motivating departure for the team.
We travelled in convoy to Dublin port. The Irish Ferries ship, the W. B. Yeats brings us overnight to Cherbourg, France.
As we travel through Europe, we will visit a number of war memorials that bring home the horrific consequences of war. First up are the Normandy beaches, the landing sites for the largest seaborne invasion in history, the start of the World War two fight back, the liberation of France and Europe. It was June 6th, 1944.
The invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries.
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
We visited Omaha Beach where over 2,500 young men died on that first day, their lives a brave sacrifice, selfless contribution to the crushing of Adolf Hitler and his evil and sadistic regime. We walk quietly through the cemetery, over 9,000 graves, all US soldiers. It is hard to comprehend the scale of the loss of life.
We stay the night in Bayeux, a lovely French town in the heart of Normandy.
An early start, we travelled over 650 kms from Bayeux to Bastogne in Belgium. Along our route are so many war memorials, reminders of the brutality, loss of life and also the bravery of people fighting to protect their land, their homes, their freedom.
The Battle of the Bulge, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during the Second World War. It took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was a surprise German attack, their last offensive, which surrounded a much smaller number of US forces. The soldiers were able to hold out until reinforcements arrived, despite being vastly outnumbered.
Over 200,000 died in that 5-week period, on both sides, the largest loss of life in one battle in World War two.
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” – Mark Twain
We overnight in Bastogne, a very pretty Belgium town.
We leave at dawn, its cold, -2 degrees, another long day of driving ahead of us. We stop for lunch in Eisenach, home to Hans Sebastian Bach. The city was initially occupied by the US army in April 1945, then handed over to the Russian army in August.
Against the will of the people, Eisenach became part of East Germany, under Russian control. Then, as now, an example of ineffective and self-interested political leadership who decide the fate of ordinary people, without allowing them a voice.
And so, began the cold war. East V West, and despite multiple attempts for a lasting peace in Europe the aggression continues today, the most recent outbreak the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. History repeating itself.
We overnight in Leipzig, home to Colditz Castle, a prisoner of war camp for high risk allied prisoners. Every city we visit, every town, every person, has memories, stories to tell. War is never far away.
That evening we meet up with Stewart Ford the founder of Jeeps for Peace and his Scottish convoy, a super group of people. Most of the Scottish drivers have been here before. They are a passionate, caring and fun group who have already delivered over 400 jeeps to Ukraine.
This will be the toughest day physically and emotionally. It’s an early 6 am start and a long drive, about 700 kms, and 8 hours. We leave Germany, our destination eastern Poland.
Hitler and the Nazi leadership, together, imagined, then started their project to create a superior Aryan race, a “master race”, and exterminate, ethnic cleanse, a multiple of identities, not just Jews but Roma gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, literally anyone not a fit with the vision of a strong dominant German people.
The Auschwitz- Birkenau camp was well hidden, in a very rural area with a 40-kilometre exclusion zone, so no one could witness the horrors inside; forced labour, starvation, medical experiments (without any anastatic), torture, humiliation and death.
This was not just Hitler who planned the concentration camps, later extermination camp, but thousands of architects, engineers, logistical economists, construction teams and hundreds of businesses supplying goods and services.
You can still feel the evil of this notorious torture and death camp, so many innocent people treated like the lowest form of dirt or mud, no emotion or regard for human life shown to them by their jailors.
We are all drained by the experience, angry too. How could this happen? Our wonderful French tour guide summed it with one word, Indifference.
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the INDIFFERENCE of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. –Haile Selassie
There are many comparisons between Hitler and Putin, a man who will become more relevant tomorrow, when we cross into Ukraine. Two narcissists with sociopathic level ambitions for power, wealth, dominance, land and control who will crush any and all oppositions no matter the cost of life.
This evening, we are joined by Irish songwriter Nathan Johnston, Ukrainian singer Tetyana Shyshnya who has travelled from Rome where she now lives, and Tom McEnaney Founder of Irish Charity Effective Aid. They will travel with us for the last few days
Finally, we get to cross the border. It’s another early start. People are tense, yet excited. We drive in a convoy, 20 vehicles in total and get through the border formalities of leaving Poland and entering Ukraine in a couple of hours.
Throughout most of Western Ukraine there are no obvious signs of war. When driving through the village and towns you notice it is mostly old men, women and children, on the streets. It’s the young men who are missing, off defending the country, fighting at the frontline. Too many of the men we do see we see have a leg (s) missing, no wonder we had so many requests for wheelchairs, walkers and 600 crutches!
Those left behind don’t go out much to bars or restaurants. There’s a guilt complex, how could you be seen to be enjoying yourself, socializing, when so many of your family, friends and neighbours are fighting, being killed, wounded, displaced and suffering?
We arrive in Lviv around 6 pm and firstly handover the truck to John from Breaking the Chains. He immediately leaves, it’s a six-hour drive ahead of him before he will reach the animal sanctuary.
We deliver the jeeps and ambulance to a delegation of doctors and military personnel, who are so grateful for our support. Afterwards, Stewart the leader of the Jeeps for Peace convoy hosts a dinner evening, with some speeches and tokens of appreciation for the drivers.
The night is rounded off with Nathan, Tetyana and Ukrainian Band Panchyshyn & SVIT playing solo sets before singing together John Lennon’s, Imagine. Wow, wonderful, we can dream of peace. It’s an early night as there is a curfew in effect, and we need to be off the streets and back in our hotels by midnight.
The day in Auschwitz- Birkenau was supposed to the toughest day it wasn’t. Today we witness the horrors and consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The villages and towns we passed through yesterday all have memorials, graveyards overflowing with flowers and flags in the bright Ukrainian colours which are in sharp contrast to the reality, the consequences of a horrific war that has taken the lives of way too many.
We start the day with a visit to the Lviv graveyard. Every grave includes a photograph of a young man, mostly young men though there are young women too. Many are smiling, before the war, a happier time. The poignancy of the moment is heightened by the sound of the bagpipes, a lone piper walks amongst the graves. We ponder it all, alone in our individual thoughts, unable to face each other, many overcome with emotion, the sadness of it all.
We return to the Lviv city centre and attend the funeral of two soldiers, there will be five buried today in this one city. Witnessing the pain and agony of the families is overwhelming. The newly dug empty graves we saw this morning will be full this afternoon.
So many people killed. No one is releasing the numbers. There is no official tally of the dead and wounded or indeed the number of the young men fleeing to escape conscription. That’s all part of the Ukrainian propaganda, keeping the people on side, committed to the fight. And most are onside, though many are still in shock as to what has happened. The people we met were mostly tired about it all, resigned to continuing the fight, there is no other choice.
The war, as it is today, is going nowhere. Both sides have significant defence capabilities which are unlikely to break. So, both armies are bedded in for the long term, just lobbing missiles at each other without any apparent tangible military objective other than to make life hell for the other side. And Putin keeps sending young boys, many untrained, into an impossible fight, with a vicious strategy that is killing young men on both sides. It’s trench warfare, literally millions of landmines on both sides of the trenches. World War 1, here we go again.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”- Albert Einstein
Before we leave for the border, and head for home, we visit an Orphanage in Rozdil about an hour from Lviv. This is an all-male special needs orphanage, boys to men, that is supported by Effective Aid an Irish charity founded by Tom McEnaney. Some of the young boys have been rehoused here, away from the frontline, away from their families. Despite the mostly poor accommodation and housing conditions there is incredible love shown to the boys by Oleksandra Yanovych the dynamic founder and her amazing team.
We were given a very beautiful performance, both song and dance, by the residents. It was both uplifting and emotional. They practiced for two months.
Afterwards we drive by bus to the Ukraine border, walk across into Poland and are collected by a bus at the far side which drives us to Krakow for a farewell dinner. We have driven almost 3,000 kilometres, we have witnessed highs and lows and though we are exhausted, we are galvanised, bonded by the trip, and proud of our small contribution to a very huge problem.
We’re home, recovering. It was tough mentally and physically. Mostly it was an incredibly rewarding trip for everyone, old friendships renewed, new friendships forged. The very generous donations we received and passed on will save lives and help the people (and animals) in Ukraine in so many ways.
The second big benefit for the Ukrainian people is us just arriving there, standing shoulder to shoulder with them, supporting them, listening to them, showing we care, knowing that they are not being forgotten and we recognize the incredible burden they are shouldering for Europe and the West, for democracy, for freedom, standing up to a ruthless dictatorship.
Thirdly, and a continuing benefit, is the visibility of the plight of the Ukrainian people we are highlighting on social media including on the What About Us channels with over 115,000 followers. So important are the individual posts, the photos and the videos shared by the drivers with their family, friends and business connections. Together, our messaging is reaching many hundreds of thousands of people.
Our social media goal is Awareness, Awakening, Action. Social media can amplify our work, our voice and hopefully encourage more people and businesses to support our missions by simply following, liking, commenting on or sharing our posts, photos and videos.
We will of course continue our support for Ukraine. In the short-term we will continue to send medical supplies to hospitals in Ukraine, veterinary supplies to the Breaking the Chains dog sanctuary and supporting whatever urgent needs the Rozdil orphanage has, beyond what the Irish Charity Effective Aid can provide.
In the medium terms there will be more projects, more volunteer trips, more initiatives.
And finally, What About Us. Our core is using music to promote peace, challenge war, connecting communities in conflict. On this trip we enjoyed some lovely examples of the power of music; our departure from St Patricks in Greystones, our last night with the soldiers and medics in Ukraine and the following morning in the orphanage in Rozdil with wonderful song and dance performances from some very special young men. What About Us will continue with our own long-term mission, to use music and our music led projects to promote peace and make war unacceptable.
“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”- Jimi Hendrix
THANK YOU
We have some many people to thank, incredibly generous supporters.
The Drivers, who gave their time and money to travel across Europe, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian people.
Derry Shaw. Brian McDermott, Aidan Phelan, David Clarkin, Eugene Phillips, Damian Young, David O’Reilly, Noel Shannon, John Ryan, Luke Ferguson, Eddie Evans, Paul (Cruiser) O’Grady, Eddie Byrne, Daragh Cafferky, Eoin O’Reilly, Gerard O’Brien, Paul Mulligan, Michael O’Brien, Tom Creed, Greg Lawless, Stephen (Sammy) Byrne and from Krakow on Nathan Johnston and Tetyana Shyshnyak.
The sponsors, who provided funding, goods and services, individuals that donated money.
All View Healthcare, Greg Darcy (Bluebird Care), Eddie O’Toole (Bluebird care), Axa Insurance, The Beach House (Greystones) Zeus Scooters, Focus Advertising, Beauchamps Solicitors, Shannon Engineering, Caterhire, Hireall, Ethos Engineering, Keoghs crisps, Brian Fitzsimons (ABCO KOVEX), John O’Reilly (3rock.ie), Peter Ledwith (Spirit Ford), Eagles golf society Leopardstown, Ann Marie O’Byrne and friends, McGuirk’s Golf Leopardstown, Reads Direct (Dundrum), Gary O’Sullivan (Bartra Healthcare) Orla Fitzgerald, Greystones sailing club, Marty & Michelle Carr, Robert Keily, Mark McArdle, Colin McGivern, Maria Casey, Fiona Casey, Hugh O Donnell, Pat & Lorraine Reidy, Pat O Donnell, Joseph Morris, Ken Kirk, Eleanor Barrows, David Dixon, Ann Brady, John Smith, Davd Shipley, Joe O’Carroll, Paul Duggan, Patrick Brazel, Mark Wignall, Fiona Mulcahy, Cormac Creed, Frank Donnelly, Anne Bouchier Hayes, Des Dillion, Lou D’Arcy, Sr Monica (Carmelite Convent, Stillorgan), John Prosser and Kevin Phelan.
The people and businesses who provided medical supplies.
Finola Harrington, St James Hospital, The Blackrock Clinic, Beacon Hospital, St Vincents Private Hospital, St Michael’s Hospital, Tallaght Hospital, Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, Orwell nursing home, Galway University Hospital, Mary Ryan Pharmacy, Rowex, Clonmel pharmaceutical, Nurse Patricia Madden, Nurse Bernie Caffrey, Nurse Sineid Ni Se, The Carmelite sisters in Stillorgan, Roebuck and New Ross, Bairbre Smith & Agnes Young and the team at Delgany Golf Club, Roisin Purcell and the Jesuit priests in Milltown. Karl Doran (Tallaght Hospital) and Damien Meaney (Beacon Hospital).
Businesses and individuals who provided animal and veterinary supplies.
Arc Petcare, Petstop, Annette Byrne, Joyce O’Connor, the Animal Co-Op. Pet Bliss, Lucy Bannon, Terry Murphy, Anne Redman
As we reflect on our recent humanitarian trip to Ukraine, we are filled with gratitude for the resilience of the people we encountered and the profound impact of our collective efforts. Your support was invaluable—whether through donations, spreading the word, or simply sending good vibes our way. Each act of kindness contributes to a brighter future for those affected by the ongoing crisis.
By sharing our content, you help spread awareness and inspire others to join our mission. Together, we can amplify our voices and make a lasting difference in the lives of those in need.
We invite you to stay connected with us on our journey. Follow us on social media to keep up with our ongoing projects, updates, and ways you can get involved.
Let’s continue to stand together in solidarity for Ukraine and beyond. Thank you for being part of our community!
