In their first extensive interview since being freed, Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh recount the physical and psychological abuse they endured over 104 days in captivity.
TRINITY, Ala. — Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh evaded Russian forces for hours, slogging through pine forests and marshes
Drueke and Huynh, who met in Ukraine, went to the country despite stern warnings from the U.S. State Department that taking up arms against Russian forces was unsafe and ill-advised. They joined the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine, a force comprising hundreds of Americans, Europeans and other foreign nationals who responded to public entreaties from the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Huynh left the United States on April 8 to join a humanitarian group helping in Ukraine, he said. Drueke left four days later, believing that his experience during the Iraq War and familiarity with Western weapons could prove helpful to Ukrainian forces, he said. “It was kind of a satire name because I’m not really a hateful person,” Huynh said. “Quite the opposite.”The men decided that “their skills could be better applied elsewhere” in the war, and requested a release from the contract they had signed with their first unit, Drueke said.
But the unit was ambushed, and in the ensuing firefight everyone scattered, the Americans said. Drueke, Huynh and their team leader began searching for a machine-gunner and sniper who’d gone missing, only to learn that other members of the unit had taken their vehicles — and most of their food and water — and returned to base without them, Drueke said.
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