Beka: The combat medic who said goodbye to a quiet life in the US and joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces
In March 2022, 30-year-old Rebekah "Beka" Maciorowski left Knoxville, Tennessee and travelled more than 8,000 km to Ukraine.
As soon as she heard the news that Russia had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Beka knew she wanted to help Ukrainian people. Up until then her only connection to the Slavic world had been her last name, Maciorowski – her ex-husband’s great-grandfather was from Poland.
As a civilian in the US, Rebekah worked as a paramedic for over 10 years, occasionally volunteering as a medic in Venezuela, Mexico and Guyana.
Now Beka works as a combat medic in the 53rd Separate Mechanised Brigade named after Prince Volodymyr Monomakh. She is deployed to the Toretsk front.
Our first video call took place against the constant sound of artillery shelling on her side. Early on in our conversation, Beka warned me that she was on duty at a stabilisation point; injured soldiers could be brought in at any moment, she said. That was exactly what happened. Thirty minutes into our call, she had to leave to help wounded soldiers.
We next spoke several days later. Although we spoke English, Beka peppered her conversation with Ukrainian and Russian words. When talking about what she’s been through during the war, for example, she would repeat: "It’s pyzd*ts [a clusterf**k]."
Russian propaganda regularly reports that Beka (who they refer to as an American mercenary) is dead. The first time the Russians claimed they had killed Beka was in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, in December 2022.
"First I was shocked, then I got angry. Does it look like I’m dead? I’m alive, stupid idiots! Once the Russians even said I was a sniper. They claimed they killed a famous American sniper. I thought: ‘What the hell? What the f**k are you doing?!’ It’s so crazy. Now I ignore their claims. For me this is just khu*nya [bullshit]," Beka says.
Rebekah Maciorowski spoke to Ukrainska Pravda about why she decided to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine when the full-scale invasion started, how she overcomes the language barrier to talk to her brothers-in-arms, and what she finds amazing about Ukrainian people.
Beka’s path to Ukraine
The first time Beka heard about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine was around 2016 from some Ukrainians she worked with in the US. They told her about the repressions that the Ukrainian people endured in the USSR, the struggle for Ukraine’s independence, the Revolution of Dignity, and the Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of Donbas, and they shared with her how these events had impacted on their lives. Beka was fascinated by Ukraine’s history.
In 2021, Beka’s Ukrainian friends started to worry about the build-up of Russian troops on the border and the possibility of a full-scale invasion. Beka was on a shift at the hospital when she heard the news that the invasion had begun.
"I couldn’t believe it was happening right there and then!" Beka recalls, her voice full of feeling. "And the whole world was watching, but no one started helping straight away because Ukraine is not a member of NATO. I decided I had to help the Ukrainian people, especially because I had experience working in tough situations."
In March 2022, Beka sent an official job application to Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. She was granted permission to work in Ukraine almost instantly.
She told her boss that she wanted to use up the holiday hours – almost 10 weeks’ worth of them – she had accumulated over several years to go to Ukraine and help people there. The hospital director wasn’t surprised by Beka’s decision. "I knew you would do that," she told Beka approvingly. "I was waiting for you to tell me you were going to Ukraine."
Nor did Beka’s family – her brother and her sister-in-law – bat an eyelid at her decision. No one had even considered that Beka, always so brave, would be able to watch the Russo-Ukrainian war unfold from across the ocean.
So Beka packed her bags and travelled to Ukraine.
"When I got here, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to go back home with a clear conscience until I’d helped the Ukrainians defeat the Russians. It doesn’t matter if you’re Ukrainian, American or European. You can’t be a bystander to the Ukrainian tragedy and pretend everything is okay. Everyone has to come together to put an end to the war."
Initially Beka had planned to work in a hospital behind the front line, but when she found out there was a shortage of combat medics at the front, she joined the military.
She didn’t go back to the US when her 10 weeks were up.
The army
Beka didn’t want to join the International Legion because she knew she would only be working alongside foreigners there. "I wanted to work with Ukrainian soldiers," she stresses.
She started out as a paramedic in the 36th Marines Brigade.
"I was the first foreign citizen to wear the blue beret. It was an honour for me!"
She got her first nickname while working with the Marines, who jokingly called her Mommy.
"They always turned to me when they were injured or had health issues. One of them said: ‘When we’re in trouble, we just call Mom and she helps us.’ It started as a joke, and then it caught on. They always called me Mommy. Now it seems really funny, but at the time I was even a bit offended because everyone else had cool nicknames like Bullet, Biker, Racer and Ghost – and I was Mommy," Beka says with a smile.
During one of her first evacuation operations, Beka helped a seriously wounded soldier whose family was in Mariupol, which at the time was encircled by Russian forces.
"This guy was seriously injured but he told me: ‘Just put me in a cast and let me go back to the battlefield. I can’t save my family, but it’s my duty to keep on fighting for Ukraine.’ I was really moved," Beka says.
During her time working with the Marines in Donetsk Oblast, Beka met soldiers from the 53rd Brigade. She helped them evacuate wounded soldiers, and they quickly became friends. That’s why she then joined the 53rd Separate Mechanised Brigade.
"The Marines were being transferred to the Kherson front and asked me to join them. But I said ‘Guys, you mean a lot to me, but the 53rd Brigade is my family.’ I stayed with them in Avdiivka."
As soon as she joined the brigade, Beka told her brothers-in-arms she no longer wanted to be Mommy. She asked them to just call her Beka.
"All of my friends and family call me Beka. That’s what the soldiers here mostly call me, though sometimes they address me as Bekusik or Bekichka [affectionate forms of the name Beka in Ukrainian – ed.]. It’s very sweet."
New soldiers frequently joined the brigade while it was stationed in Avdiivka. Beka would teach them tactical medicine. She was working around the clock both as a medic at a stabilisation centre and evacuating wounded soldiers, and as an instructor.
"After Avdiivka, we were transferred to New-York. I can’t talk about that, but it was real hell. Now we’re stationed near Toretsk," Beka says. She continues: "Most of the towns in Donetsk Oblast where I lived with my soldiers at some point are now occupied. Every time we move into a new home, the first thing I do is gather all the photos, drawings and other valuables in one box and put it away in a safe place. Because I sincerely believe that Ukrainian families will come back home."
Now, most of the buildings where Beka and her fellow soldiers lived, or where she set up medical aid points, have been destroyed by Russian shelling or occupied by Russian forces.
Daily life and brothers-in-arms
"I love the people I’m serving with, because we take care of one another despite the horror around us. I remember once we were driving to a position. I was wearing an armoured vest and a helmet, I had my uniform on. A sergeant touched my hands and he thought they were cold, so he yelled: ‘Stop! Stop the car! Turn around!’ We went back to get some warm socks and mittens for me, and only then did we set off for the position."
Beka was very surprised to find that people in Ukraine always wear hats when it gets cold outside. Her brothers-in-arms tell her off when she forgets to put hers on.
She’s even more surprised that she’s not allowed to lift anything heavy. In the US she was used to having to do everything by herself, whereas in Ukraine even injured soldiers offer to help her. Beka has never encountered sexism or been treated dismissively by men in the Ukrainian army.
Beka likes the way people in Ukraine use diminutive forms of names, like Vania for Ivan, Sasha for Oleksandr and Losha for Oleksii. At first she’d get really confused and think she’d misremembered people’s names, but eventually she got used to it.
"It’s interesting to see how people introduce themselves. First Oleksandr, then Sasha, then ‘Sania, f**k!’" she says, laughing.
Beka’s pet peeve is that her brothers-in-arms always add water to liquid soap that’s about to run out instead of buying a new bottle.
"I’m trying to change that. I tell them, ‘Guys, I’m going to go to the store and get us new soap when this one runs out. Please don’t put water in the bottle, okay?’ I’m a nurse, so I know that a new bottle of soap will be better at killing germs than soapy water."
Language and culture
"Have you tried learning Ukrainian?" I ask Beka.
"Kanyeshna [a bastardised ‘of course’ in Russian – ed.]," she replies convincingly.
Most of the soldiers Beka works with are Russian speakers because they’re from Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, so Beka understands Russian better than she does Ukrainian. But every day she tries to find soldiers who speak Ukrainian to learn a few new words.
"I recently learned the word ‘tsikavo’. I’d heard it a lot before and I thought people were saying ‘tse kava’ [‘this is coffee’], but it turns out that ‘tsikavo’ means ‘interesting’," Beka tells me.
In over two years on the front line, she has learned how to overcome the language barrier. She talks to her fellow soldiers in a mixture of English, Russian and Ukrainian. She understands all the tactical medicine terminology in Russian and Ukrainian, but struggles with day-to-day conversations.
"I’m not making anyone learn English. I’m in Ukraine, so I have to speak the language of the people around me," Beka says.
"I think the language question has to be addressed after we win the war. First we have to fight to save Ukraine and the Ukrainian language. It’s easy to be a patriot when you’re far from the front. Come to Donetsk Oblast and speak Ukrainian. Come fight, then tell the people in the military what language they should speak."
Beka’s added a lot of Ukrainian songs to her playlists since coming to Ukraine. She loves the national anthem and the Song about the Embroidered Towel [a popular Ukrainian song also known as Rushnychok, or My Dear Mother, based on a poem by Andrii Malyshko – ed.]. She listens to songs by Kozak System and Klavdiia Petrivna every day.
She loves Shchedryk (the Carol of the Bells) and has been many times to Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, hometown of the song’s composer, Mykola Leontovych. The town is now being shelled and destroyed by Russian forces.
"I would like every person in Ukraine to see at least one frontline village. To take them to the homes of the families that lived there before the war took that away from them. There are still books on the shelves in those homes, clothes in the closets. But the people who lived there had to leave their homes because Russia destroyed everything," Beka says.
"Ukrainians who live far away from the front have to see with their own eyes what war can do to them if they don’t join the army and stop fighting. Maybe that’s when everyone will understand the cost of this war."
Anhelina Strashkulych, Ukrainska Pravda
Translated by Olya Loza
Edited by Teresa Pearce