It's not the clearance of mines, UXO, boobytraps. Honestly, that's one of the easiest parts.
It's not the teaching, I actually enjoy it. It gives me a sense of purpose to help guys work more safely, to keep their team safe and to be force multipliers that benefits the Ukrainian military as a whole.
It's not the long hours, the endless battle to keep up to date with new devices being used that could kill us (and I'm sorry but there is a lot of people who really do not understand the bigger threat picture here. After 10 years of being involved in mine action on and off the frontline in Ukraine in combatant and noncombatant roles, I am still battling daily to keep up to date).
It's not managing and caring for my team. They are as feral as me so it's fine.
It's not being separated from loved ones, as hard as that truly is.
What's the hardest thing, is this, keeping up with a social media presence to scrape in what we can to keep cars running, repaired, rent paid on the teamhouse/training area so that we can keep teaching, training, travel to assist mine clearing, raising awareness.
We would love to talk more about the units we train, but we can not, for simple operational security. We will not post hourly updates It's a shame that we have to keep one of our volunteers almost full time taking pics, videos, editing. when there is so much more he can be doing on a practical level that supports Ukraine.
We get asked a lot why we don't put more in to social media, youtube etc. We don't have time, it's that simple. Running an organisation like this is a full time job, unpaid, no fixed hours.
If I am awake, then it's work time. The phone doesn't stop, the work doesn't stop.
The requests, questions and endless organisational tasks do not stop.
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