Grady Williams sits at his home in Santa Barbara on Friday.
Grady Williams, a 64 year-old resident of Santa Barbara, flew to Ukraine earlier this year where he spent two months doing independent volunteer work. He was recently interviewed during a Wendy P. McCaw Roundtable, a Young America’s Foundation event in Santa Barbara.
Mr. Williams decided to go and volunteer in Ukraine after hearing President Zelensky’s speech to the European Parliament on March 1.
“I had been watching the buildup of the Soviet military on the border of Ukraine since March of 2020. It worried me that nothing was being done to stop it. President Zelensky made a request for everyone to help who could from anywhere. And I said ‘I have to go,’ knowing what was happening and what kind of people the Ukrainians are and who had been building democracy for so long. I was retired with no excuse not to go. I was on the plane thinking there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be going back and I was okay with that,” Mr. Williams told the News-Press in an interview.
“The whole time of Russia’s buildup to the invasion, a Ronald Reagan quote was stuck in my head. In 1982 He was talking about freedom and the threat to freedom from global wars involving Russia. He said it would take a march of freedom and democracy to defeat it. And then he asked his audience, ‘What kind of people do we think we are? And let us answer; free people. Worthy of freedom. And determined not only to remain so, but to help others gain their freedom as well.’ That was stuck in my head when I made my decision,” Mr. Williams told the News-Press.
“I flew to Kraków, Poland, and got a ride to the border. From there I hitchhiked to Lviv. I spent a few days helping refugees get from trains to buses; the refugees took the buses to cities in Europe,” said Mr. Williams. “Their luggage was mostly plastic grocery bags of very few belongings. After just a few days the volunteers tripled so I felt I needed to move further in to be of more help. I took a train to Kyiv, which was pretty dangerous, it was pretty interesting in and of itself. After I got there I started asking all the military people if anyone knew where I could administer humanitarian aid. There was one guy guarding a checkpoint and I told him I wanted to volunteer on a military base,” said Mr. Williams. The man told Mr. Williams to wait there. When the man returned “a car came up and I was told ‘Get in the car and go with him.’ During the drive I started seeing bombed out Russian military vehicles. Outside Kyiv we went through an industrial area and they told me to get out. When I got out I was standing at a fence, a gate opened and an officer drove up. He said ‘get in’. They did a background check on me and took me to the commander of the base, Mamuka Mamulashvili, Commander of the Georgian National Legion. He had several guards with machine guns posted around the office. I saw handwritten sentences all over the office walls. I saw just enough to be able to read them. They were mostly quotes from Ronald Reagan.”
After talking with the commander for quite awhile, the commander said of Mr. Williams “Anytime he wants to come to my office, just let him in.”
“From there I went into military training programs, which was a couple weeks worth of training. I ended up being about the best shot they had at the time. The Georgian National Legion has three primary missions: sabotage, reconnaissance and training new recruits,” said Mr. Williams.
He volunteered primarily with reconnaissance and training new recruits. Mr. Williams largely provided hand-to-hand combat training. He also did humanitarian aid distribution, including organizing an entire warehouse of donated goods.
“When I left Kyiv, I remained a member of the Georgia National Legion and started a base in Santa Barbara. My mission is, in general, to give awareness of who the Georgian Legion is and what their purpose is, as well as to raise funds. The Georgian National Legion is a 100 percent volunteer, all equipment and support comes from funds raised,” said Mr. Williams.
He learned while volunteering that they could revolutionize the operation quite simply.
“I am an engineer and have been a motorcycle rider since I was 13. They need electric motorcycles to quadruple productivity, the land they work on is quite open, largely agriculture fields. They will drive as far as they need to, to do reconnaissance, but still have to walk to their target. Sometimes when they leave an area they need to do it stealthily, and other times it doesn’t matter if they make a lot of noise, according to Mr. Williams, but both are accomplished with electric motorcycles.
Mr. Williams, center, is shown with some of his compatriots in Ukraine.
“The funding I am raising will go to fund the Silent Cycle Squadron, a unit of six individuals. The squadron will be built from scratch including raising the money, procuring bikes and getting them retrofitted to meet needs in the field. The funds will also go towards recruiting operators, getting them trained and bringing them to Kyiv, to integrate them into the rest of the legion,” said Mr. Williams.
“I learned what Zelensky was like after hearing his impassioned speeches but I never realized until I got there what a perfect reflection he is of the Ukrainian people. All they wanted was to live life in freedom and democracy and they look up to the U.S. very much in that. They couldn’t believe what was being done to them. There is no people that is more deserving of freedom and democracy that I can think of than them … The real reason Russia attacked is about how the Ukrainian people are becoming so successful in creating democracy on the Russian border and Putin feared that the Russians would see that and he would be thrown out of office. Ukraine became an existential threat to Putin,” said Mr. Williams.
Aside from his family, his passions include Harley motorcycles, rifle marksmanship, mixed martial arts and being a docent at the Reagan Ranch, all of which he engages in at least once a week. Mr. Williams holds a B.A. from Walla Walla University in Washington and a Master of Science in Engineering from Virginia Tech.
“I stay in contact daily with my squadron on the frontline, and about every other day with Mamuka. My thoughts are still so strongly with the people of Ukraine that I still hear the air raid sirens that go off in Kyiv, thanks to a Ukrainian app I still have on my phone,” Mr. Williams told the News-Press.
“With all the places in the country I could have ended up, or no place at all, I believe it was a higher power that took me to Mamuka Mamulashvili and the Georgian National Legion. They are some of the most authentically loving, sincere, honest people I’ve ever met, and their wish to help the Ukrainians is unparalleled in my experience,” said Mr. Williams.
Those who wish to donate to the fund for the Silent Cycle Squadron can do so at the following link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/electric-motorcycles-for-ukraine.
Donations can also be made via Paypal: @georgianlegion2022.
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
