NOT TANNING?:

The two exchanged messages before deciding they should meet in person to size each other up. "Hope your [sic] for real," texted Graham. Where there is bravery and conviction, there is often also bravado and theater. The Reddit threads (and the Polish-Ukrainian border, for that matter) teem with people -- both well-meaning and exhibitionist -- who say they're eager to help Ukraine but never act on those words.

Within minutes, they were cracking military jokes and sharing stories from their seven-month tours in the Middle East. And within days, they had landed in Poland on tickets booked by Graham's wife. Graham, a father of three, requested that his last name not be used out of fear that harassment might be directed at his family.

In Poland, a local businessman shuttled them five hours to the Ukrainian border, where agents at the checkpoint scoffed at their small survival knives. "Go get some Russians," they said, handing them a larger and sharper one. Graham -- bright-eyed and silver-haired -- and LeBlanc -- tattooed and broad-shouldered -- rambled east toward the conflict zones.

LeBlanc came from a family of service. His father was a Marine and his sister enlisted in the Navy at the same time that he joined the Marines. She likely would have boarded that same plane to Poland had she not just given birth to a baby girl.

Meanwhile, Graham's mom, Michele, often wondered what drew him to the Marines. The closest relative with military experience was her father, who served in the Korean War, but somehow landed a cushy role downhill skiing in the Alps for the Army.

"I'm the type of person who doesn't even like people owning guns," she said. "This is all really foreign to us. But how do you ask your kid not to do something that he feels deep down inside is the most intense and purposeful thing he's ever done in his life?"

If Michele couldn't stop her son from going, at least she could try to help keep him safe. She posted a long-shot call for help on Facebook, soliciting contacts in Poland and Ukraine. By chance, a former colleague said she knew of an Irishman posted outside Lviv.

Twenty-three years in the Royal Air Force and five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq had landed Aaran Leyland -- red-headed, bushy bearded, and brash -- in a series of security consultant gigs, most recently for Northrop Grumman. Days after the Feb. 24 Russian invasion, he hugged his 9-year-old daughter goodbye and boarded a plane to Poland wearing a black T-shirt that read "Not Today Jesus." He felt driven, he said, by a fiery vision of blowing up Russian tanks in Kyiv.

Why would these men, with stable livelihoods, loving families, and no past connection to Ukraine, drop everything to join a war oceans away?

"This may be happening in Ukraine, but it is the world's fight. I'm young and I started my own business. I have a nice place to live. I have nice stuff. Everything I want. And it's just like, well, everybody should have that, everybody should be free," said LeBlanc. He joined the Marines at age 19, anchored by a similar belief.

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