The final actions of Graham Dale, the Dublin native who died fighting in Ukraine on December 9, have been revealed by US Army veteran Ryan O’Leary.
Dale and a team of Ukrainian troops left the safety of their defensive fortifications to prevent a Ukrainian position that was surrounded by Russian troops from falling, O’Leary, who leads foreign volunteers in “Chosen Company,” which is attached to Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade, told Task and Purpose this week.
“Instead of retreating or hiding, he [Dale] ran into the combat,” O'Leary said.
“Dale killed multiple enemy soldiers before being wounded.
“The enemy assault was stopped due to his actions, and those of the Ukrainians with him which prevented the line from collapsing.”
Dale was wounded in the fighting, O’Leary told Task and Purpose. As the Irish American tried to get back under cover, he was hit again after a Russian drone dropped two munitions. Dale's teammates had brought him back to safety and performed life-saving measures on him, but he died of his wounds.
Dale is believed to be the third Irish person killed in Ukraine during the war that began in February 2022. Co Mayo native Finbar Cafferkey was killed earlier this year, while Co Meath native Rory Mason was killed in October 2022.
Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs is reportedly aware of Dale's death. Funeral arrangements for Dale have yet to be publicly confirmed.
After securing a green card, Dale emigrated to the US from Ireland, where he had been a member of Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil (FCA), in 2000. A year later, he enlisted in the Marines after the 9/11 attacks and went on to serve in Iraq.
In 2008, Dale wrote "The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq" alongside Irish journalist Neil Fetherstonhaugh.
The synopsis of the book says: "Dubliner Graham Dale, an IT specialist living in Texas, was working as a volunteer with a fire department when he heard that an airplane had hit the World Trade Centre in New York.
"As the tragic events unfolded before his eyes, he suddenly realized that he could no longer remain a spectator in the face of this appalling atrocity. There and then he made a decision that was to affect the rest of his life; he drove to the nearest Military Recruitment Centre and enlisted in the US Marines.
"After surviving months of ‘constant mental and physical torture’ in the notoriously tough ‘Marine Boot Camp’ in San Diego, he joined the ranks of one of the most elite branches of the United States military and two years later found himself patrolling the dangerous wastes of the western desert in war-torn Iraq.
"Throughout his deployment in Iraq, Dale kept a daily journal to give us an astonishing, true account of one man’s fight in the frontline of America’s ‘War on Terror’.
"Told with brutal honesty, he gives us a unique and rare insight from an Irishman, fighting for a foreign military in a very foreign land."
Dale's platoon was hit by a suicide bomber in 2005, an experience that left him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
"When my friend got killed, that was the hardest," Dale told the Irish Independent in 2008. "It's still difficult. Things like that just don't happen every day."
Dale said that despite the PTSD, he was "pretty glad, or content" with the path he had taken.
"I wouldn't take it back. I don't necessarily recommend that way of life, but for me, I stand by the decisions I made."
At the time of his 2008 interview, Dale was back living in the US in, what he called, "one of those anonymous suburbs with a white picket fence" and was thinking about settling down.
In May 2022, however, Dale told local Texas news outlet KXAN that he quit his job, without the customary two weeks' notice, to head to Ukraine to assist the efforts against Russia.
“This is somewhere that I’ve been to on vacation before, I know people from here,” Dale told KXAN.
“To me, this is an attack on all of Europe and I felt compelled with my current skillset and so forth that I could help in any way that I could.”
Dale said had initially planned to assist with the wave of fleeing refugees in Poland, but once there, he said he realized his help was needed more inside the war zone.
At the time of the KXAN report, Dale had most recently been in Dnipro in the eastern part of Ukraine.
Dale said in Ukraine, he met up with a team of other military veterans from both the US and Europe to deliver humanitarian aid, including to orphanages and hospitals.
“We’re providing assistance, we’re making people’s lives more tolerable,” Dale said last year.
“Particularly with the food and medicines that we’re getting delivered to the places that really need them.”
The Irish American said at the time that he’d stay in Ukraine as long as he was needed and would like to transition from a volunteer position to a full-time job.
“You realize that you are the boots on the ground, you are that line in the sand,” Dale said.
“There is no magic government button that presses and millions of resources make themselves available.
"Generally speaking, it’s civilian volunteers stepping up to the plate.
"(They) are the ones that help most with the people during and after these kinds of disasters and wars.”
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