Estimated studying time: 11 minutes
A promising American chased a trigger, crossed an ocean, placed on a Russian uniform, and died in Ukraine. That is the stark, uncomfortable arc of Michael Gloss.
Hook: From Idealism To A Battlefield No One Anticipated
Ah, children…
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Practice up a toddler in the way in which he ought to go,And when he’s previous he is not going to depart from it.”
That’s within the E-book, and I perceive the gist. Generally, irresponsible mother and father spawn irresponsible children. Virtually each severe smoker I ever met had at the least one smoking mother or father. Youngsters mannequin the conduct of their mother and father, even when they’re rebellious, distant, or merciless. Oftentimes, it’s due to these issues. In contrast, put within the work as a mother or father and you’ll afford your offspring the very best alternative to succeed.
No matter how they’re raised, children are like little home made boats. You rigorously craft that vessel as finest you’ll be able to, however in some unspecified time in the future, you must push that factor out into the pond. As soon as that’s performed, your child is making his or her personal selections. There’s no turning again.
I’ve had to do this thrice myself. Every iteration was comparably excruciating. Watching my children make among the identical errors I did was notably poignant. Because of the grace of God, my three turned out OK. Tragically, nonetheless, regardless of a mother or father’s finest efforts, typically that’s not the case.
Case Examine: How Michael Gloss Slid From Idealism To Struggle
We’re about to debate one household’s absolute nightmare. I’m not making gentle of it or in any manner diminishing the gravitas of the occasions surrounding this younger man’s life and premature dying. Within the transient lifetime of Michael Gloss, we see a person who was exploited by essentially the most corrupt regime of the trendy age. His dying touches on politics, riot, and the scourge of psychological sickness.
As close to as we will inform, Michael Gloss began out properly. His father, Larry Gloss, was a US Navy Desert Storm veteran who presently works in cybersecurity. His mother, Juliane Gallina, is a US Naval Academy grad who was the primary feminine to guide the brigade of midshipmen. After leaving the Navy, Juliane took a job on the CIA. She is presently the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation.
I don’t know Larry or Juliane myself. Any deductions I’ve made come from studying information reviews. Nonetheless, it’s a secure guess that Michael was probably raised pretty properly. Each of his mother and father had been Navy vets, and his mom is a spy. They’re clearly good, conscientious, patriotic People. Nonetheless, typically even with the very best of foundations, children can go off the rails. That’s what occurred with Michael Gloss.
Particulars: From Vienna, Virginia To A Russian Uniform
Sooner or later, Michael grew to become radicalized. No offense, however I can see that on this very house. I’ve been writing these weekly GunsAmerica columns for actually years now. I learn each phrase of the feedback. Most readers are insightful, respectful, and thought-provoking. Studying your opinions typically makes me rethink my very own, which is all the time a wholesome factor. Nonetheless, a small however statistically important proportion of you dudes are flat-out nuts.
It’s fascinating to ponder why that’s. We dwell within the very earliest throes of the Info Age. By no means earlier than in historical past has the human animal been bombarded with a lot uncooked knowledge beginning at such a younger age. Personally, I believe that’s the place lots of our ADHD comes from. We take newborns and topic them to flashing lights and frenetic sounds each waking minute as a result of that’s the simple method to hold them occupied and quiet. Then they develop up unable to concentrate or handle a gentle prepare of thought. We actually ought to have seen that coming. One facet impact of this fixed barrage of data is that people can get emotionally invested in some remarkably spurious causes. There are numerous examples.
Case Research: When Narratives Substitute Actuality
Charlie Kirk wasn’t a racist in any conventional sense. Any unbiased pondering one that bothers to speculate an hour or two listening to the man discuss will draw that conclusion. Nonetheless, a warped younger man pushed by sound bites and punctiliously sculpted narratives bought sufficiently agitated as to climb up onto a rooftop with an vintage bolt-action rifle and homicide him in entrance of his little woman.
Leftists across the globe have been rioting in help of Palestine. That is even supposing Hamas murdered 1,200 males, girls, and kids in a single day and can flat-out execute you in the event that they even assume you is likely to be homosexual. It’s fairly nonsensical if you concentrate on it.
Within the case of Michael Gloss, this poor child bought so agitated over contrived environmental points and curated on-line propaganda that he deserted his life in the USA and made his method to Russia. As soon as there, he was satisfied that he was going to save lots of the planet by enlisting within the Russian Military. In brief order, he was despatched to Ukraine and killed alongside numerous hundreds of precise Russians additionally duped into turning into the Unhealthy Guys in Putin’s bloody warfare.
The Man: College, Sports activities, And A Onerous Flip
Michael Gloss graduated from Oakton Excessive College in Vienna, Virginia. Whereas there, he performed each soccer and lacrosse. He subsequently attended the School of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, the place he majored in human ecology. I wasn’t there, and I by no means met the child myself. Nonetheless, I’d be keen to guess that a few of his human ecology professors had been fairly politically on the market.
Left-wing apologists typically undergo from a most peculiar type of cognitive dissonance. Tyler Robinson, the younger man who has admitted to capturing Charlie Kirk, grew up in a conservative Mormon household. Nonetheless, as soon as he bought to varsity, he started relationship a person who identifies as a girl. His private writings expressed outrage over LGBT causes. I’ve misplaced observe of the occasions I’ve seen left-wing commentators allege that Robinson will need to have been some type of closet MAGA operative. Actually? Gee whiz, guys, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, that’s probably a duck.
Michael’s obituary learn, partially, “Michael grew to be bodily sturdy and tall, considerate and principled, and from an early age he used these strengths to guard and guard towards injustice of all types — whether or not it was on the playground, on the sphere or in politics.”
Studying between the strains, I’m pondering he probably bought radicalized in school earlier than launching on his ill-advised voyage of discovery.
Darker Components: Psychological Well being And Manipulation
As I researched this sordid story, I discovered references to Michael’s unspecified psychological sickness. It’s estimated that 23.4% of People undergo from some type of diagnosable psychological dysfunction. 5.6% of US adults expertise some kind of severe psychological sickness occasion annually. Sooner or later of their lives, almost half of People would meet the factors for psychological sickness of some type.
Nervousness issues are the most typical. Main melancholy impacts round 8% of People. A part of that’s definitely the results of elevated surveillance. In eras previous, ADHD was simply little boys being loopy, whereas melancholy was typically handled unsuccessfully with alcohol. Whatever the particulars, within the case of Michael Gloss, this poisonous mixture of nature and nurture finally killed him.
Cannon Fodder: Entrance Traces, Donetsk, 2024
Gloss signed a contract to hitch the Russian armed forces in 2023 and was assigned to an airborne regiment. His standing as an American citizen who was the son of a CIA officer inevitably earned him a sure diploma of notoriety. Regardless, he was deployed to the entrance strains in Ukraine’s Donetsk area in brief order.
As I kind these phrases, the Russian warfare of aggression in Ukraine has floor on for both three or eleven years, relying upon the place you identify the place to begin. Each the federal government of Ukraine and the non-partisan UK Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research place whole Russian casualties in extra of 1 million troops as of mid-2025. Russian unbiased media has verified at the least 135,000 Russian KIA. That quantity is undoubtedly low, as it’s the results of scrubbing social media, scant official information, and documenting bodily tombstones. No matter the way you gauge it, the warfare in Ukraine has been a massacre for each side. That doesn’t appear to be getting any higher.
On 4 April 2024, Michael Gloss was caught in an artillery barrage throughout navy operations close to Donetsk. His father later reported that he was hit whereas attempting to rescue an injured comrade. What scant info that made it again to the States signifies that he bled to dying because of his wounds.
Key Timeline And Info: Michael Gloss
Onerous Truths & Classes
Propaganda preys on purpose-seeking youth. It sells certainty, then cashes the test in blood.
Info overload distorts judgment. Infinite feeds can flip causes into obsessions.
Psychological well being issues. Untreated points make manipulation simpler and outcomes worse.
Struggle devours the idealistic first. When you step onto that subject, actuality guidelines.
Ruminations: What Michael Gloss’s Demise Ought to Train Us
Michael Gloss was recognized to have suffered from a diagnosable psychological dysfunction, although particulars are obscure. Vladimir Putin publicly lauded Gloss by identify. Russia named a college within the occupied Donetsk area after him. In August of 2025, Gloss was awarded the Russian Order of Braveness. His award was delivered to his grieving mother and father by US envoy Steve Witcoff. I’m not satisfied that introduced Michael’s people quite a lot of consolation.
Every thing in regards to the sordid story of Michael Gloss is solely tragic. Whipped into an ideological furor, a misguided, mentally in poor health younger man fled to a dictatorship and apparently willingly volunteered to go to warfare on behalf of a monster. Trendy warfare is horrible, bloody, and shockingly environment friendly. Michael was subsequently blown to items alongside actually a whole lot of hundreds of equally misguided younger troopers, all as a result of one darkish, twisted man can not convey himself to say, “Cease.” It nonetheless amazes me that, this deep into the twenty first century, nations nonetheless go to warfare over the whims of a single lunatic.
Will remains to be attempting to determine what he actually needs to be when he grows up. Nonetheless, capturing weapons and claiming it was work appeared like a reasonably candy hustle. Consequently, Will serendipitously remodeled an avocation right into a vocation.
Raised within the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Military Aviator. He’s SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of completely good airplanes at 3 o’clock within the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six occasions…all the time on the controls of an Military helicopter, which is the one manner smart folks climb mountains.
Will has delivered sixty infants and sometimes wrung human blood out of his socks. He’s married to his highschool sweetheart and has three superior grownup kids. Flip-ons embrace classic German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Rely Chocula cereal and the film “Aliens.”
www.word-monkey.com
Expertise:
-Skilled Author-thousands of publishing credit for dozens of titles
-Mechanical Engineer/Practising Doctor
-Instrument-rated Industrial Pilot
-Sunday College Instructor
