Lito Villanueva went from a junior Air Force cyber specialist to a military contractor in Afghanistan, a special operations communications expert, and eventually a volunteer supporting teams near the front lines of the war in Ukraine.
In this episode, of Urban Valor, Lito shares the uncensored story of leaving the U.S. Air Force after two years, landing a $164,500 Afghanistan contractor job at 21, surviving daily mortar attacks at FOB Shank—better known as “Rocket City”—and entering the hidden world of special operations, C4ISR, military communications, drones, intelligence, surveillance, and kinetic strike operations.
He also opens up about the psychological cost of war, witnessing lethal operations, returning home disconnected from civilian life, battling depression, and finding a new sense of purpose through veteran suicide prevention and humanitarian work.
Years later, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Lito entered the country alone with humanitarian aid and eventually joined a team that needed his expertise in tactical communications, blue-force tracking, intelligence organization, and battlefield command-and-control systems.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 00:00 The Reality of War Behind the Curtain 01:22 Meet Lito Villanueva 02:05 Growing Up in a Filipino Navy Family 09:33 Why Lito Joined the Air Force 15:52 Why Basic Training Felt Easy 22:50 His First Air Force Assignment 25:30 The Leader He Refused to Follow 30:34 Leave the Air Force or Stay? 32:23 Life After the Military 34:34 Finding an Afghanistan Contractor Job 36:57 A $164,500 Job Offer at 21 42:28 Realizing He Was Going to a War Zone 01:07:56 Why He Returned to Afghanistan 01:09:46 Assigned to “Rocket City” 01:17:15 The Network Problem That Changed Everything 01:23:28 How He Entered Special Operations 01:29:02 Behind the Curtain of U.S. Military Power 01:44:59 The Conversation That Helped Him Heal 01:45:30 Building Battle Buddy for Veterans 01:50:42 Russia Invades Ukraine 01:52:51 Crossing Into Ukraine Alone 01:56:55 His First Mission to Kharkiv 01:58:39 Delivering Aid Near the Front Line 02:02:33 Joining a Ukrainian Support Team 02:08:54 Inside the Kharkiv Counteroffensive
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DISCLAIMER: The views and experiences shared in this interview are those of the individual and are recounted from personal memory.
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