I first came to Ukraine in 2018, drawn by the familiarity of war and those who serve in wars, searching for a world and community that I thought I’d left behind years before. What I found was an inspiration, a tribe of revolutionaries, ordinary men and women, most without military training, who in 2014 self-deployed to the war in eastern Ukraine and stopped the Russian insurgency in the Donbas. Unlike my wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, they weren’t under a contract or an obligation to serve a government. They weren’t motivated by money or benefits or job security. This tribe was driven by something far more powerful––what they truly believed in and a vision for change. For over four years, I’ve followed these revolutionaries, walking alongside them as they move to and from the front line to the peace life. I’ve laughed with them, cried with them, drank far too much alcohol with them, raised glasses in memory with them, and after February 24th, when they again rose to fight and inspired the world, I realized that I had become one of them. But I also realized something else. It never mattered which country I came from, this instant camaraderie and falling into place with them. There’s a point along the timeline of years separating a combat veteran from war, when we realize that it’s not our individual countries or patriotism which defines us, but an experience. We become something larger, a universal tribe with a universal memory of war that shapes the way we move through the world forever. And once we recognize this, we find a parallel universe where we all exist together, across borders, across oceans, transcending the boundaries of nation and conflict. We are not alone, and we have the power to change the world.