From Walmart to War Zone: An American Hero in Ukraine

Gimli died on September 27 of last year. You may know of Gimli, the dwarf from The Lord of the Rings, a character famous for his goodness, loyalty, and courage.  

However, the Gimli we’re talking about in this case is really Dalton Medlin, an American volunteer fighter in Ukraine’s Foreign Legion. His Ukrainian brothers-in-arms gave him this nickname, and he earned it.

According to his father, Warren Medlin, “Since age 4, Dalton had his heart set on helping people. He was thinking, even at that age, of being a policeman or being in the military.”

The young Medlin ended up in the military, but after serving proudly for four years, he returned to civilian life, working for Walmart.  The change wasn’t a satisfying one for him.  He missed the brotherhood and sense of purpose he had enjoyed in military life, and he missed the sense of actively helping people.

Everything changed for Medlin when five days after Russia’s February 22, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he heard President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s impassioned plea to “… come and fight-side-by-side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals.”

For the young man, here was the chance to help people who needed help. He knew his military skills would be needed.  On arriving in Ukraine, he was quickly chosen to serve with “The Chosen,” a group of foreign fighters who were creating havoc for the Russians. 

His father remembers the day his son died. The young soldier was shot as he was leading a charge against three bunkers. As he lay on the ground, injured but still alive, a Russian walked up to him, coldly pointed a gun at his head, and fired.

Ukrainian drones hovering overhead observed what happened next.

The Russian invaders booby trapped the young soldier’s body. They hid grenade launchers designed to kill anyone who tried to retrieve the body. 

“My son still lies where he was murdered,” Medlin says, and then adds, his voice husky with anguish and bitterness, “The invaders are using his body as bait, hoping they can kill still more of Ukraine’s defenders.”

In the months since his son died, Warren Medlin made the sad discovery that, “Your mind can be your enemy. It won’t leave you alone. You think of every argument you ever had, or every time you were too tired to pay attention to him. I wish it had been me who was shot. As his dad I want to lay there and hold him in my arms and tell him, ‘It’s all going to be all right,’ but I know it’s not going to be all right.”

Thinking back on his son’s sacrifice, Medlin says, “He made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of people he didn’t know. But even so, I know he was living his best life.  I look at the pictures of Dalton taken here in the States. Funny, in those pictures, he didn’t smile, but in the photographs taken in Ukraine, he was always smiling. We know we have freedom because of patriots like him.” 

Medlin was in D.C. because, of the R.T. Weatherman Foundation, which supports the West’s efforts in Ukraine. With Weatherman’s encouragement, Medlin was lobbying members of Congress to continue their support for Ukraine. 

As my interview with Medlin came to an end, he took from his pocket three cream-colored pieces of quartz, each about an inch long and half an inch wide.  He explained, as he looked at the stones nestled in his palm, that these were stones he had collected for his son while doing contract work in Iraq.

Medlin found the stones among his late son’s personal possession. Medlin was deeply moved to find that these stones had meant so much to his son that he had kept them over the years. Medlin picks out one of the stones hands and hands it to your author, saying “If your courage ever falters, hold onto this. It’s a hero stone.”

For more information about the Weatherman Foundation, come to: https://www.weathermanfoundation.org