Gentry’s Purpose
After closing his borrower’s loan in Siversk, Gentry donated most of his commission from that deal to a Ukrainian fighting unit. “I helped them fix one of their cars with some of the money that I made off that deal,” Gentry said.
Aiding civilians who have had their homes destroyed and lives ripped apart was sufficient reason to put himself in harm’s way, Gentry figured, but his reason for venturing into a dangerous city like Siversk was to gather intelligence from soldiers that have struggled to fend off Russian drones.
“I had applied for a press pass, and [those are] really hard to get, especially as an American,” Gentry explained. “I did kind of go over in a press capacity with martial law over there, if you want to do interviews or record anything with units, even if you're not press.”
When he had the chance to speak with soldiers, he would inquire about their jobs, their vehicles, and how their tactics had evolved. In the end, he concluded, “We are not prepared for drones. I think we need to start implementing and looking at adaptations to our vehicles.”
Although Gentry still has to get through one more year of his enlistment and is scheduled to deploy later this year to the Middle East, his specific job within the military is already considered obsolete.
“We're called ‘the last of a dying breed’ for a reason,” Gentry said. “Because we're amphibious tankers and our vehicles are no longer allowed to go in the water. So what does that mean? We don't really have a job.”
However, Gentry knows that the U.S. has deployed tanks to Ukraine, and he understands that armored vehicles and tanks are largely at the mercy of Russian drones. A New York Times article published in March explains that when a mortar round explodes on an American-made infantry fighting vehicle, Ukrainian soldiers are shaken but not terribly injured. But when the small fiber optic drones start to swarm, the tanks, and the men in them, become sitting ducks.
In Ukraine, where this sort of drone attack is a daily occurrence, Gentry’s military training and expertise could actually be put to good use.
“I want to make sure that the U.S. government has done its part in training [the soldiers in Ukraine] and giving them the materials and equipment and knowledge and educational benefits that they should receive if they're going to go fight drones,” he said.
Even a Marine does not head to the front lines as a reporter only to learn about drone warfare, however; there’s almost always a deeper purpose in play when one’s life is on the line. And so it’s perhaps unsurprising that Gentry’s desire to improve U.S. tanker and armored vehicle units is partially rooted in an unfortunate incident that took place two years ago. After returning home from a month-long deployment in the Middle East, Gentry discovered that an Iranian drone strike had killed nine U.S. Army soldiers who were stationed in the same area.
“I sat under fifteen Iranian drone strikes in Ukraine one night, and those are the same drones that killed them,” Gentry said. “They were just dropping kind of left and right, and there were a few soldiers outside trying to shoot them down … And I mean, it could have easily hit the house and blown up.”
That’s why Gentry was out there. To understand how drones were changing the rules of engagement. And to help prevent what cost those nine soldiers their lives from happening again.
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