From Sales Pitches to Artillery Strikes

This is Bohdan. A few years ago, his biggest daily headache was being a sales manager. Today, he holds a seriously impressive rank in Ukraine’s Separate Presidential Brigade.

It’s one hell of a career pivot, all things considered. But as it turns out, dealing with an invading army requires a surprisingly similar level of patience to customer service—just with substantially more artillery.

First Among Equals

In my line of work, you meet a lot of people. Some you tolerate, some you actively avoid, and a very rare few earn your unconditional respect. Bohdan falls strictly into the latter category. In the photo, we’re holding his unit’s flag. The motto translates to “First Among Equals,” and for once, the branding is entirely accurate.

He is, frankly, one of the most fundamentally decent human beings you could ever hope to cross paths with. He spends his life right now navigating the absolute worst that humanity can dish out, yet somehow remains a walking example of how to conduct yourself with pride, dignity, and a frankly infuriating level of kindness.

He is one of the very few people on this earth who could ring me at three in the morning, and I would actually answer the phone and bend over backwards to sort out whatever he needed. No hesitation. No questions asked.

He’d probably read this and tell me to stop being a sentimental tosser, so I’ll leave it there. He’s a brilliant man doing an unimaginably hard job.

Slava Ukraini.