Pete Reed, was a humanitarian, paramedic, and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who had gone to work in Ukraine assisting people afflicted by the war.

He joined the Marine Corps in September 2007, shortly after his 18th birthday. He became an infantryman and deployed twice over the next four years to Afghanistan’s Helmand province. At the time, some of the Afghan war’s fiercest fighting took place in the Taliban stronghold where Pete Reed’s unit deployed.

He left active duty as a corporal in September 2011 after completing a customary four-year enlistment, and began his humanitarian career a month later when Hurricane Sandy struck his home state.

Pete Reed left the United States in 2015, leading medical teams with Kurdish forces partnered with the United States and then setting up an austere medical treatment facility during the Battle of Mosul, in which Iraqi forces, backed by American air power, took back a major city in some of the bloodiest fighting against the terrorist group.

In November 2016, while in the Middle East, Pete Reed met his future wife Alex Potter, a photojournalist who covered the Middle East. Months later, they helped co-found Global Response Medicine, a nonprofit focused on providing emergency medical care in hostile areas.

Over the next few years, Reed was involved in operations in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Poland. He also attended paramedic school, graduating last year.

He was on assignment in Ukraine as country director for Global Outreach Doctors. He was working in Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine where for months Russian and Ukrainian forces have been locked in fierce warfare. This is where Pete Reed died.

“He was just such a special person,” said his wife Alex Potter. “Everything he did in life was to help other people.”

 “I knew that this was the kind of work that he loved, and he was good at, and that brought him life,” she said. “You can’t tell someone ‘no’ if they really want to do something that makes them shine, you know?”

Pete Reed was an amazing person who had a genuine empathy of and need to help those in the most horrific situations. He will be remembered and honored “In Heaven with the Stars.”