Shane wasn't born into gang life, it found him. Growing up on the South Side, opportunity was a rumor and trouble hung heavy in the air. By his teens, Shane was deep in the viper's nest, his loyalty pledged to the very gang that stole his childhood. One night, after a particularly brutal rumble, the weight of his life crashed down on him in a sleep thick with nightmares. He dreamt of a war-torn land, far from the gangbanger's bravado and the cold reality of gun violence. When he woke, a strange sense of purpose bloomed in his chest, a yearning for something more than the life he'd carved for himself.
Packing a duffel with the bare essentials, Shane left a note for his mama, his words filled with a love he couldn't quite express and a promise he couldn't articulate. He boarded a plane to Poland, from there, a train to Ukraine, a soldier not of a street gang, but of a cause far bigger than himself. The war there, a brutal conflict he barely understood, felt like the fight he was meant for, a chance to forge a new path, far from the bloodstained streets he called home.

© rossdops