PHP relief missions in Ukraine, Afghanistan led by retired general with impressive record and legacy

When the United States and allies pulled out of Afghanistan in chaotic mass evacuation scenes, many were left behind to face the wrath of the Taliban and even more evil groups. “Somebody should do something,” was a common refrain.

When Russians invaded Ukraine, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into western neighbors for safety, many were left behind in orphanages, senior homes and other under-the-radar situations.

Again was the refrain: “Somebody should do something.”

The People Helping People Network’s Jeff Cardwell was one of those wanting to do something. Another was retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David L. Grange, who had extensive military experience and commanding roles from Vietnam through Desert Storm and the Balkans, with many other leadership posts — including leading Special Operations forces, commanding the 75th Ranger Regiment, and commanding the 3rd Infantry Division.

Their life missions have been about much more than wanting to help; their missions have been about finding a way to help. Together, they are doing something for those most at risk in each country. People Helping People’s Afghanistan Relief Project has undertaken treacherous missions to evacuate hundreds of Christians, those who helped American forces and others most at risk after being left behind following the official U.S. departure.

That mission is ongoing even as PHP also has launched the Ukrainian Relief Project, whose primary goal is to help orphaned children and those with special needs get out of harm’s way amid the Russian assault. Neither of those missions, though, are possible without the leadership of someone who has extensive connections, access to critical intelligence and wealth of military experience and a courageous track record.

Grange is the point man on these missions. Since retiring from the Army, he has lent his leadership skills to the private sector and nonprofit sector, including 10 years at the helm of the McCormick Foundation. He has made many television appearances on news programs over the years helping people understand military situations. He founded Osprey Global Solutions, a consulting firm and government contractor that offers logistics, intelligence, medical, security training, armament sales, financial forensics, construction and other services.

“We are honored to join forces with and support Gen. Grange,” Cardwell says. “He has a lifelong commitment to serving our country and helping people — whether it’s here at home or abroad. What I admire most is how he puts his faith into action.”

Grange says that working through a nonprofit organization like PHP is crucial to secure funding for humanitarian operations in way that others can see, verify and trust. And when that organization so well aligns with your priorities — namely helping people in need — all the better.

“When you’re working with a nonprofit, it’s more transparent,” Grange says. “Jeff already had efforts going on to help people, to help people in need. By adding this to it and having us execute it for him, it was a perfect match because he already had the infrastructure in place.

“We know how to do it, and the guys who are working with me are all Tier 1 operators,” Grange adds. “With People Helping People, they have a great program. Having run a nonprofit for 10 years myself, the McCormick Foundation, I understand philanthropy, the 501(c)3 stuff, how to file and all the requirements, etc. But we’re a for-profit company. It’s focused on security, health, medical stuff and logistics — mainly in remote areas — so it fits nicely with anyone who wants to conduct a mission for the good of mankind.”

Anyone who has seen news reports out of Ukraine in recent months has seen the long lines of refugees streaming out of the country and crowds packing train cars. Those are easily seen by cameras in western border areas. You won’t see Gen. Grange and his team in those scenes.

“What we focus on is the difficult missions,” he says, “such as an orphanage where you have a guardianship issue because of the laws on human trafficking and usually disability issues with most of the children because that’s why many were left there to begin with. We also have people needing special care in hospitals, such as paraplegics. We’ve also extracted an assisted-living type of facility that was near the front lines and under artillery fire. They were extracted to a pickup point for forward movement. Half of those elderly people had dementia and a good number were in wheelchairs.”

These extraction missions require advance planning and up-to-the-minute intelligence information. But Grange and his team know and expect plans to change when operating in war zones.

“When we’re not particularly evacuating someone or standing by to do another group, you’ve got to stay up on all the intelligence because if you don’t have good intel, you might not drive to the right place,” he says. “You don’t want to go through a Russian checkpoint as an example. It’s very difficult, and it’s life or death.

“All that planning’s done ahead of time — where they’re gonna go, where they’re gonna stay — but truth changes, and even if you have a plan, it’s gonna change.”

Among the life-or-death missions they face are tangential to the primary goal of extracting those in most need. For instance, they will soon be bring in supplies and responding to casualties near the front lines while helping diffuse ordnance and booby-traps left by Russian troops as they leave devastated villages behind.

“They have IEDs, terrible things in refrigerators and washing machines,” Grange says. “We’re having injuries to kids and women. Having been wounded by a booby-trap myself, it’s kind of close to my heart. That’s one of the examples of other things we’re going to do to augment our capacity because we know that we can also accomplish something else while we’re there. We don’t want to waste time if there’s some kind of stall in an evacuation.”

“The other thing we can help with is casualty support,” he adds. “We have a pretty good network of medical support. A lot of these casualties by the front lines are civilian and military. We can help with some of the trauma wounds. Our company did that in Kurdistan against ISIS and in the Mosul area. We make sure the trauma is taken care of and can then take them to a casualty collection point. And then they’ll go from there to a Ukrainian hospital.”

In the process of heading into harm’s way, the team finds other ways to help — and he would like to do more.

“We’ve been moving some stuff like baby food in, been moving some body armor in,” Grange says, adding that the team has the capacity to bring in more. “If we go in, we can take something in, not just take stuff out. Because we’re trained to operate in those environments, I know we can help do that.”

If the missions going into Ukraine sound treacherous, they are. However, Grange’s team has been working with PHP since last summer helping people get out of Afghanistan — after the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power. People Helping People counts at least 1,300 people who have been helped to safety.

“Once that ended, everybody kinda went away,” Grange says of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan that officially ended on Aug. 31, 2021, noting that in the wake of that withdrawal U.S. military veterans have further stepped up to play critical roles on his team, estimating 95 percent of whom are veterans. “We knew that there were still a lot of people to get out that trusted us, that depended on us. We have done some extraordinary rescues. What’s amazing to me recently with these last two, Afghanistan and Ukraine, I’ve noticed the increase in our nation of veterans stepping up to help these situations. It’s very difficult.”

As difficult as the Afghanistan missions have been, he feels that the people left on the ground deserve the effort.

“There are some people in the country that are so brave that I’m humbled by it,” he says.

The Grange legacy has long been solidified in Army history long before these post-retirement missions into Ukraine and Afghanistan. In fact, retired Maj. Gen. Grange is the son of retired Lt. Gen. David Grange Jr., for whom the annual Best Ranger Competition at Fort Benning, Ga., is named. His legendary father, now 97, served 41 years and fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He is among the few paratroopers in United States Army history to make three combat jumps — one in World War II into France and two in Korea.

David L. Grange says one of his main motivations for continuing to fight for what’s right is that he has witnessed so much of what’s wrong in the world.

“I’ve been a special operations officer for most of my life,” he says. “While serving, I saw a lot of the cruelty and badness around the world and persecution of helpless people, the abuses from human trafficking to exploitation, to setting conditions for starvation — whatever the case may be. So, I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff around the world.

“To solve these problems, it takes a combination of for-profit, nonprofit and government together — kind of a whole nation approach to accomplish these things,” he continues. “Having worked in all those three sectors in my life, I just can fit it in nicely and feel like I’m accomplishing something, so I’m still able to do that. I’m still mobile enough where I can operate overseas.”

The Special Forces motto — De Oppresso Liber (Liberate the Oppressed) — still echoes in his head. It’s also a matter of faith. He admits that seeing so much evil in the world can test one’s faith.

“Sometimes you see things and wonder why it has to be this way,” he admits. “How can this possibly be this terrible?”

But an indelible image helps restore that faith. Over and over, he has seen how the oppressed, especially children, respond to American troops by reaching up to their sleeves and touching the American flag patch. He feels faith flow through that flag and the way people respond to it overseas.

“It represents faith. It represents hope. It represents opportunity. It represents safety. That’s hard to beat,” he says. “So that goodness — and I’m just using the American GI as one example — that goodness is there. That reinforces faith — faith in our nation, what it stands for, In God We Trust and all those things.”

Anytime his faith is tested, it emerges stronger.

“The older I get, the more I probably believe,” Grange says. “I still question at times. But there’s a reason, I feel, why I’m an American. There’s a reason why I’m able to still do missions abroad, to make a difference with the people that we work with. I like the idea that we’re the executing arm of an organization like PHP and we can actually do that with a partnership with the trust that they have given us. Thank God that we know how to do it in harm’s way.”