Hello,
Im a Legionnaire that serves along side of Ben and was injured in the blast with him. i would like to offer my condolences for your loss. I have known him since the very beginning, we met almost 6 months ago, we got along well due to our shared interest of guns. As time progressed we trained together at rivne and later deployed together in the same platoon in Kharkiv oblast. We had many fun times together and I learned a lot from ben not only did he show me how to operate the machine gun but he also taught me how to ride a motorcycle. I vividly remember both of us being on guard duty at night talking for hours about different firearms, politics, society and many more things. We lived together as brothers for months and shared many experiences from digging in the rain to patrolling in the night. I have been informed that you have inquired about the details of the mission on which he lost his life, so I will try to recall the events of that day to the best of my ability. On the first day of our arrival in kupiansk half of the city had been taken by friendly forces already, the city was bisected by the oskil river. The other side of the river still has many enemy troops and it was our platoons mission to secure the main bridge and fend off any possible assaults by the enemy. As a member of our sniper team I was tasked with providing overwatch across the river in one of the buildings closest to the enemies. To ensure the sniper teams safety ben along with 5 others were sent to guard our rear. These men were all stationed in the basement of the courtyard right behind the main building. We all slept in the basement to protect us from enemy artillery fire; however on the morning of the second day shelling was sporadic so me along with multiple others sat on the stairs towards the basement eating our breakfast. Ben was positioned on the very top of the stairs i sat right below him and the rest of our comrades sat below us. Due to the cold weather ben had given me his winter coat for the moment we were sitting talking about how much colder the winter would be and how we would need thick gloves, around this time we could hear artillery start to hit closer but due to the regularity of such shelling see were not concerned. The explosion happend in a split second, I personally don’t remember most of it only seeing a bright flash of light and then being thrown down the staircase into darkness and dust. I immediately realised I couldn’t feel my hand and had a sharp pain in my shoulder so I moved out of the way deeper in the bunker to clear the path for others to try to help any injured. I remember sitting deep in the basement when our medic finally came to attend to me, how he told me that the injuries were sever and how ben had lost a lot of blood, but we were all hopeful still due to the txa that was administered and the fact that our medic reassured us that his brain had stayed unharmed. After being treated I was evacuated in an ambulance through multiple hospitals however i did not get to see ben ever again. I’m sorry for your loss, he will be remembered as a hero who died protecting what he believed in , as a man who wore his boots till the end.