‘Forgotten war’: Nebraska veteran, former lawmaker readies ninth Ukraine mission amid Russian war

LINCOLN — A former Nebraska state lawmaker and U.S. Army veteran hopes his ninth trip to Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion next week keeps a spotlight on what he fears has become a “forgotten war.”

Former State Sen. Tom Brewer, a 36-year veteran who earned two Purple Hearts with tours in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, will again visit Ukraine beginning the week of Memorial Day for about two weeks with a small team of Nebraskans. In large part, the missions are fact-finding and a means to give back to the “Nebraska-like” country, share stories from the ground and look to when the war is over.

“There are people I’ve run into who don’t even realize the war is still going on,” Brewer told the Nebraska Examiner.

There is still daily fighting on an active warfront that stretches 600 miles with hundreds of thousands of fighters and 400-plus drones in a given night, Brewer said. Yet Brewer said Iran’s importance on oil and gas prices, and the danger war correspondents face going to the war-torn Ukraine has meant that keeping the Russia-Ukraine war top of mind is difficult.

“There’s more happening there in one night than has happened in the whole Iranian situation,” Brewer said.

“You would think there would be a break point where they said, ‘You know, we’ve just paid too much. I’m done,’” Brewer said of Ukrainians. “But I don’t think it’s going to be there.”

While there will be a lot of healing and reconstruction after the war, Brewer sees a chance for a sister-like relationship between Nebraska and Ukraine, one he’s been helping to build. Ukrainians in Lincoln, in return, have honored and thanked Brewer and his team, among other state leaders.

“If you can just visualize Ukraine, 1-2-3 years after the war is over, and how we can help this country that’s so Nebraska-like to become a key part of Europe and the world,” Brewer said. “That’s really where we need to be thinking.”

A mission-driven team

The latest team again includes Don Hutchens, the longtime former executive director of the Nebraska Corn Board, and John Grinvalds, KETV’s capital bureau chief who is again independently traveling as a war correspondent. Grinvalds has produced multiple story series documenting his time in Ukraine, including the award-winning “War-Torn: Stories from Ukraine” aired on 10/11 News and the “Wounds of War” and “Winter of War” series aired on KETV.

Dick Clark, who worked with Brewer when the senator chaired the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, is also joining this time to independently help with governmental affairs. Brewer chaired that committee for six of his eight years in the Legislature. Clark serves as committee legal counsel.

“There’s a value added if you’re not a ‘drive-by Charlie’ who just shows up, gets a picture and leaves,” Brewer said.

As in previous trips, the team, particularly Grinvalds, will be within a few kilometers of the actual war front. Brewer said that “gives you a level of reality and credibility that now they want to work with you” and that sharing stories from the ground, as Grinvalds and the team will again, is vital.

Brewer’s group also will tour agricultural operations at Hutchens’ coordination, observe a military drone unit, see demining in agricultural fields, visit a golf course retrofitted to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries and meet with government leaders. Clark will also help with Ukrainian legislation to assist veterans when they return from war.

This time also marks a celebration for a project Brewer and Grinvalds have followed: the opening of the Child of Light orphanage outside of Kyiv, spearheaded by a Lincoln-based group.

While Brewer’s team continues its missions across Ukraine — including Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Kyiv — they will again help with humanitarian aid in towns near the front by delivering food to elderly Ukrainians in those communities.

“That’s a little hairy, that mission, because every time we’ve done it, we’ve got rocketed,” Brewer said. “We just don’t want to be in the same place the rocket is, but it doesn’t mean that people don’t need help and it’s not a good mission.”

He continued: “It’s one of those where you boost their morale something fierce when the people that are out there doing it see someone who cares enough to come there.”

Unbreakable Ukrainian ‘spirit’

Brewer said the battlefield has evolved, and when he and the team last visited in December, it was dark, with no electricity and no heat in the country’s capital, yet Ukraine made it through.

“You just realize that they just have such a spirit, such a passion to want to survive this thing,” Brewer said. “To walk away now and not get a win would be a horrible sacrifice.”

Though Russia has tried to quash that spirit, Brewer said Russians can’t and have dwindled their equipment to be inferior to that of Ukraine. Ukrainian drones and missiles have affected Russian seaports, refineries and railheads while also being narrowing in on Russian defenses.

“I don’t think Russia can survive another winter,” Brewer said. “As they take out more and more stuff, deeper and deeper, the war comes home.”

The costs are still high in Ukraine, with Ukrainian soldiers and citizens killed or injured each night and dwindling cash and gold reserves to sustain the war. Brewer said he remains disappointed the American government won’t give the Ukrainians Tomahawk missiles to fight.

Agriculture importance

Hutchens traveled to Ukraine before the 2022 invasion with the U.S. Grains Council while on the Corn Board, which he led for 27 years. After the war began, he was one of a handful of Nebraskans who went to Warsaw to help relocate refugees via Operation Safe Harbor Ukraine.

Then, “by chance” in April 2025, Hutchens ran into Brewer and Grinvalds, who Hutchens said wanted someone with an agricultural background. Hutchens, too, brought a connection with billionaire Howard Buffett, who sponsored an agricultural conference with more than 500 farmers across Ukraine and has helped fund Ukrainian resistance efforts.

Hutchens said that while Nebraska and Ukraine are similar, with worries about markets, weather and government assistance, he also can’t help but think of the differences. Ukrainians worry about landmines, drones and Russian interference in killing livestock, kidnapping children or grandchildren and stealing equipment.

Yet one thing holds between the two nations, that if a fellow farmer or neighbor is hurt or falls ill, there’s a helping hand, Hutchens said.

“I think that’s the way we ought to view Ukraine agriculture,” Hutchens said. “We ought to think about different ways that we can support them.”

One story Brewer and Hutchens hope to share after the latest trip is that of a Ukrainian farmer who became well known for keeping a shotgun in the cab of his tractor and shooting down drones. Russian forces killed the farmer, but his family stepped up to continue the work.

“If more people had knowledge of what they’re doing there, Nebraska would embrace that and say, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s a farmer,’” Brewer said. “His love of farming cost him his life, yet he influenced his children in a way to where they would still continue it, even though their lives are in danger.”

As Ukrainians and Americans look to the end of the war, Hutchens says talk about crop rotation and minimum tillage to conserve water or erosion — costly and time-consuming endeavors — show a future-looking people.

“It’s going to take time, but their perseverance in agriculture is impressive,” Hutchens said.

American farmers are in their own “really tough situation” with tariffs and depressed commodity prices, and droughts have complicated agricultural operations, particularly in Nebraska, but Hutchens says he hopes that Nebraska’s federal delegation, which represents an agricultural state, can be at the front of the line to support Ukraine and push help over the finish line.

“I would hope as a population — not just agriculture but as a population — we communicate with our elected officials to do everything possible to end this war,” Hutchens said.

‘He’s a hero, a brave guy’

Brewer said he wishes support for Ukraine, and the democracy Ukrainians are fighting for, won’t become a Republican or Democratic issue. 

“If you really have it in your heart to see them as a free democracy, then disregard what the hell stamp you got by your name and do the right thing and help them,” Brewer said.

In the U.S. House, 215 Democratic members, two Republicans and one California Republican turned independent have gathered the minimum signatures necessary to force a vote on $1.3 billion in aid for Ukraine’s future and additional sanctions on Russia, while reaffirming U.S. support for Ukraine and the importance of NATO.

The bill comes from U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Of the two Republicans, one is retiring Nebraska U.S. Rep. Don Bacon. All of Nebraska’s congressional members have voiced support for Ukraine, as has Gov. Jim Pillen. Bacon said he expects a floor vote on the bill the first week of June.

Of Brewer’s continued missions, Bacon said he’s proud of Brewer and his team and noted the importance of Buffett, who probably spends about half his time in Ukraine. When Bacon visited a unit on the front lines in Ukraine, he said Buffett had donated all uniforms and supplies. 

Bacon said of Brewer: “He’s a hero, a brave guy, full of courage. I love being around him. He’s smart and he has moral clarity on this war. That’s why he keeps going back out there to help.”

Brewer said some of his continued drive is also self-serving, with many family members wearing a military uniform. The United States has equipment sitting in warehouses that could turn the tide, but which the country has refused to provide and have questioned Ukraine as a key ally.

“Instead, we’ve ostracized them and forgot them, and I think the history books will identify our failures to do what we should have and could have at this key time in history,” Brewer said.

‘See and do and help’

Each time Brewer goes to Ukraine, he says he thinks it will be his last. He and those he travels with spend their own funds or fundraise, and he sees a “sense of accomplishment” in farmers returning to work after mines are cleared or in seeing the orphanage completed.

The former lawmaker believes people are put on the earth for a set amount of time, yet they don’t know how much they’re given. He said he knows he doesn’t want to be the guy sitting in a rocking chair looking back and wondering, “If I would have just done more to help people.”

“I want to do it and look back on and say, ‘Hey, my life wasn’t perfect, but I did what I could,’” said Brewer.

The volunteer work also helps heal some wounds of serving in the Middle East, Brewer said, situations where U.S. servicemembers did the best they could and gave blood, treasure and lives, yet the people didn’t want them there. That’s different in Ukraine, a country Brewer said the United States will never regret helping and that could be the next “Germany of Europe.”

Of the risk his team faces, Brewer said someone could die randomly at any time, “so you grab that opportunity to see and do and help.”

“You just trust that if it’s meant to be, you’re gonna be fine. It’ll work out,” Brewer said. “In the end, you’ll be able to come back and share the story and tell the people what’s actually happening there, instead of letting it become this forgotten war that no one knows about or appreciates.”