This is the Truck You Bought For Ukraine!

The Toyota Hilux is damn-near indestructible.

Hey friends, sorry for this unexpected email send.

There are weapons that look dramatic on camera, and then there are the machines that actually keep armies alive.

This is about one of the second kind.

Thanks to the generosity of my readers here, a Toyota Hilux funded by this community has now been delivered and deployed to the unmanned systems detachment “B12,” part of the 12th Separate Special Purpose Center, which is conducting combat operations in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region right now.

It means an actual vehicle, bought with actual money from actual people reading this Substack, is now in the hands of a Ukrainian unit doing real work in a real war. It is steel, rubber, diesel, and utility moving toward the front.

And your names are on it.

Not metaphorically.

Your names are permanently rendered on the vehicle itself. That means this truck carries more than cargo. It carries a visible record of the people who helped put it there.

It is one thing to donate to a cause. It is another thing entirely to know that your contribution has been bolted into the war effort and sent into combat.

The Toyota Hilux has earned its reputation.

The Hilux is one of the most durable utility vehicles ever built. That’s battlefield folklore backed by decades of abuse on every continent. And I actually find it ironic that this vehicle is not available in the United States. Otherwise, I would have one myself.

Farmers trust it, insurgents trust it, aid workers trust it, special operations guys trust it. Hell, Jeremy Clarkson trusts it!

People who agree on nothing else tend to agree on the Hilux.

And this particular Hilux is going to an unmanned systems detachment, which makes the choice even better.

It will likely spend its days hauling equipment and operators to places Russia would prefer they not be. It may help launch sorties that destroy vehicles worth twenty or fifty times its cost.

That’s what this audience did.

And I want to say this: I am proud of you.

I know the internet conditions people to be cynical about everything. But every now and then people do something good. That happened here.

Your generosity took shape and got deployed to the Kharkiv region. And now, with your names carried on its body, it is rolling into one of the most dangerous landscapes in Europe.

There is a kind of immortality in that.

So to everyone who subscribed, donated, shared, encouraged, or helped make this happen: thank you.

-Wes O’Donnell