By Jeff Schogol

After spending 13 hours hiking into enemy territory and back to retrieve the body of a Georgian soldier who had been killed near Irpin, Ukraine, U.S. Army veteran Hieu Le knew that his war was over.

Not long after recovering the fallen soldier, Le resigned from Ukraine’s legion of international volunteers. “My team was very supportive since they saw how deeply affected I was by recovering his body,” he told Task & Purpose. “Physically I feel fine, but I also feel like I have these invisible wounds on my soul.”

Le served as an M1 armor crewman from 2010 to 2017, during which he deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. In a previous story about surviving a Russian cruise missile attack on his training base, he asked to be identified by his first name only, but on Monday Le gave Task & Purpose permission to use his full name.

On Monday evening, Le was enroute to western Ukraine along with wounded comrades and other international volunteers who had resigned. He was leaving a war that he had just joined nearly two weeks ago.

“I do feel embarrassed to be leaving so soon after arriving, but have you ever seen anything so horrible and heartbreaking that you can’t continue? It was like that for me,” he said.

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