A US Marine who fought in Iraq and voluntarily deployed to Ukraine was killed in a Russian drone strike during a dangerous mission near the frontlines in the Eastern European country, his father said.
Johnathan A. Pebley, 39, was killed during Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine over the last week. In just three days, Kremlin forces launched 900 drones at Ukraine — including 355 drones and nine cruise missiles overnight Sunday for the biggest aerial bombardment in the war to date.
“I’m heartbroken,” his father, Mark Pebley, told The Post. “I’m crushed, his mother is crushed. His brothers are crushed. Everybody that ever knew him is crushed.”
Johnathan, whose call sign was Mayhem, had joined Ukrainian troops last August and was a recently assigned team leader of the Delta Knights, a Foreign Legion squad made up of a mix of Americans, Poles, Brits and natives of Scandinavian countries, his dad said.
Mark, 63, said Russia’s largest-ever drone attack that killed his son mostly targeted civilians — an assault that led President Trump to lash out at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Ukrainians have been getting pummeled by drones, bombs and missile strikes and it’s mostly civilians,” Mark, who served in the Air Force, said. “What’s going on over there is evil and atrocious and the rest of the world really needs to step up to the plate and stop what’s really going on.”
Mark said he did not want to reveal the precise date his son was killed to avoid jeopardizing surviving members of his son’s team who remain in active combat.
Johnathan was born in a German Air Force base, but grew up in Wakefield, Mass., playing sports and listening to music. He joined the Marines a year after graduating from Wakefield High School and did two combat tours in 2008 and 2009, his father said.
After his first tour, Mark said his son still believed in the mission, but he soured on it after his second tour.
“They saw things,” he said. “They had orders that they didn’t particularly agree with.”
Johnathan alluded to that change of heart in a February interview with Task & Purpose, where he talked about his renewed sense of purpose fighting for the Ukrainian people.
“My theologies changed, my politics changed a bit, and I started to have quite a bit of guilt about my role in Iraq,” he said. “I didn’t believe that I should have been there – that we should have been there. And I kind of feel like in a karmic way, this kind of cancels that out. I’m fighting a just cause, defending a people rather than encroaching on them.”
Since he left active duty, Johnathan said he had jobs as a corrections officer, a garbage collector, a restaurant owner, and lived in four different countries, but none of it ever felt right.
That all changed when he arrived in Ukraine last August after being recruited by the Foreign Legion, he said.
“This is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I feel at home again, everything makes a lot more sense,” the Marine told Task & Purpose. “Somehow life makes a lot more sense here than it did anytime since I got out in 2009.”
The last time Mark talked to his son was May 7, while he was training for the mission that killed him.
“He’s always a sticking-up-for-the-underdog type of person. He didn’t like bullies,” Mark said. “And he felt Russia was bullying Ukraine and he felt he could do some good over there. And he did.”
Mark said that a brief text conversation he had with Johnathan in January sums up why his son gave up a safe life in America, where he was training to become a firefighter and EMT, to go halfway around the world to defend a people whose language he can’t even speak.
“By all accounts, we are considering this a suicide mission,” Johnathan had texted his dad, seemingly knowing his fate. “And we all agreed to f–king do it anyways. All of us, that CAN say no. Part of it is because ‘F–k em’ but a lot is a sense of duty. One that didn’t exist in the Marines. Because it wasn’t a choice.
“So if I get f–king smoked today. Just want to say that this is the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.”
