We were dropped into a field outside Velyka Novosilka, another nameless village no one outside Ukraine had heard of before the invasion. Our so-called “brigade”—officially known as the Normand Brigade—was more like two fireteams and a jeep. The commander, a Canadian who went by Hrulf, gave us one order I’ll never forget: “Dig these trenches now. The Russians will come in the morning. They’ll shell us first, then send armor. If the trenches are good, we survive.”
There were eight of us. We had AK-74s, a couple RPG-26s, two NLAWs, one shoddy Motorola radio, a thermal optic that looked like it came from an Alabama pawn shop, and no night vision. It was a nightmare; drones overhead, artillery bracketing us, and no glory to be found. Just cold mud and an enemy too far away to shoot at. That was my welcome to the war in Ukraine.
The rest of the war? I learned about drones when I quickly realized that being an infantryman was futile. I ran short-range ISR ops in Kharkiv Oblast—an area that, for the most part, stayed relatively quiet compared to other sectors. But quiet doesn’t mean safe. Even there, you could feel the tension in the air—especially in the silence of the forest. The rest of my time—55 days in total—was spent on or near the zero line across various fronts, each with its own hazards and rhythms. Some days blurred together in monotony; others snapped into chaos without warning.
Some of you may know me from the New York Times piece on Chosen Company. But this isn’t that story. This is the prelude. My name is Benjamin Stuart Reed, and I’m the author of War Tourist — a memoir shaped by combat, collapse, addiction, fractured brotherhood, and the kind of moral ambiguity that can’t be captured on a laminated ROE card. In this war, the darkness wasn’t just nightfall. It was inside the wire. And we didn’t have NVGs.
That was the first chapter. But it didn’t begin there, and it sure didn’t end there. Let me back up.
I joined the U.S. Army at eighteen, shipped off to basic in 2006 as a military police recruit. Like a lot of young guys, I didn’t really understand what I was getting into until I was deep in it. My first post was Mannheim, Germany; a relatively easy assignment that felt more like a long, government-funded vacation. I picked up languages fast, got into trouble faster, and met a Russian woman working as a cleaner. I visited her family on leave, and something about the culture stuck with me. It was raw, unfiltered, and the rhythm of life was like balancing on the edge of a knife.
But I couldn’t stay in Germany forever. I was reassigned to Fort Bliss, Texas, and given a choice: go to Iraq now, or wait for Afghanistan. I chose Iraq.
Two months later, I was manning a turret-mounted M2 .50 cal in the Sunni Triangle. The unit we replaced had just lost a soldier with the same last name as mine. It rattled me.
On mid-tour leave in 2009, I went to Crimea—still Ukrainian then. I drank, laid in the sun, and noticed something strategic: I had just left a U.S. base in Baghdad, and now I was surrounded by Russian soldiers. That moment stayed with me. From then on, I kept an eye on Ukraine.
In 2010, just after I redeployed, Ukraine signed the Kharkiv Pact with Russia, extending the Russian Navy’s lease on Sevastopol until 2042. The backlash in Ukraine was loud. That’s when I realized the fuse had been lit.
That same year, I submitted a packet to reclass as a counterintelligence agent; I was starting to come around as a soldier. I was granted the clearance. Things were moving. Then my mother died from what was clearly an intentional overdose—a final cocktail of Ambien, clonazepam, and vodka. My father was also battling cancer. I pulled the packet and requested TDY to be with him. I watched the myth of the American family disintegrate in front of me. Something about losing a parent; you will know once it comes.
My five-year contract was nearly up. I had an offer to join ROTC through a smaller university tied to MIT’s program. I wasn’t accepted to MIT—just a school tied to the larger ROTC program. But debt from a dumb car purchase made me rethink it all. I decided to get out and go private.
I started contracting in Kuwait with Triple Canopy. Then I worked in Afghanistan with Special Operations Consulting LLC. Eventually, I ended up in Germany again, this time in a joint DoD/NSA SCIF.
After that, I drifted. I trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai in Thailand. I had a wrestling background, so it clicked. After a detour to Australia, I was broke and landed in Alaska. I joined the National Guard but barely made it to drill given the remote, fly-in, fly-out job locations. I was trying—and failing—to get steady work in law enforcement. Truth is, I was never built to be a cop and was fired after outing my police chief for abusing his child. That story is for the next book.
So I went back to the Global South. Drove my 2015 Subaru Forester from Fairbanks to the Guatemala border. My dad passed. Grieving and aimless, I wandered through Mexico and ended up in Medellín, Colombia where I behaved, of course.
Later, I returned to the U.S., enrolled remotely at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and studied French and Spanish. Something like order returned.
In 2019, I went back to Ukraine. Of course, I found love, but COVID was soon strangling the world. We found ourselves first in Thailand. Then, trying to evade Asia-style lockdowns, we headed to Belarus. August 2020—we got trapped in a country with a revolution going on. This is where I became truly ideologically opposed to the breed of ‘Nihilistic Authoritarianism,’ as it was once framed to me by the writer Daniel Fletcher. So we had to leave. Where else could I train Jiu Jitsu and not have to face lockdown policies? Brazil.
I ended up in Rio de Janeiro, competing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, living with my girlfriend from the Donbas. And when the full-scale invasion kicked off, I returned again. The rest—Chosen Company, drones, burnout, psych ops, and fallout—is in War Tourist, my memoir currently in pre-publication.
I’m honored to write for SOFREP. What I’m offering isn’t sanitized. It’s war as it actually feels. Think Bourdain with a ruck and a rifle. I will bring to this publication geopolitical analysis forged by realpolitik, as well as stories from the front. These aren’t stories about medals. They’re about the men who make it back—and what they carry when they do.
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About the Author
Benjamin Stuart Reed is a U.S. Army veteran (31B) who served in Iraq and later worked as a security contractor in Afghanistan. He then served in the Ukrainian military as a drone operator. Reed is the author of War Tourist, a forthcoming memoir represented by Writers House Literary Agency. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he studied foreign languages with a heavy concentration in international relations. He speaks six languages and has competed extensively in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu around the world, including in ADCC events featured on UFC Fight Pass.
Follow his work:
X: @BenReedOfficial
Substack: benjaminstuartreed.substack.com
Instagram: @Benjamin_Based