Sean Michael Lee spent his life moving toward danger when everyone else was trying to get away from it.
The Army veteran who helped evacuate thousands from war zones — and played a key role in the mission that brought Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall out of Ukraine alive — died Sunday at age 50 after battling esophageal cancer.
His death was confirmed in a family obituary that reads less like a résumé than a record of one man answering the call over and over again.
Army veteran paratrooper who deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan before helping rescue Fox News reporter dead at 50 https://t.co/d8BBm7bNhp pic.twitter.com/6nSgOvBOD3
— New York Post (@nypost) September 16, 2026
Lee served more than 20 years in the U.S. Army, including multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division.
That alone would have been a lifetime of service for most people. For Lee, it was only the beginning.
When Afghanistan collapsed in 2021, he worked with Save Our Allies to help coordinate the evacuation of thousands of Afghan allies and other people trapped in the chaos.
A year later, Russia invaded Ukraine. Lee went there too, helping establish field hospitals and deliver supplies near the front.
Then came the call about Benjamin Hall.
Hall was gravely wounded when Russian forces struck his vehicle near Kyiv in March 2022. Fox cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova were killed in the attack.
Fox News reported that Lee became part of the complex operation that extracted Hall from Ukraine and moved him toward lifesaving medical care. The team mobilized within roughly 90 minutes of receiving the call.
That mission was only one part of Lee’s work after leaving active military service. He helped get Afghan allies and their families out during the 2021 collapse, supported field hospitals after Russia invaded Ukraine, and later returned home to keep serving wounded veterans.
Sarah Verardo, founder of The Independence Fund and one of Lee’s closest friends, described him as a quiet warrior who never sought credit. She said his service ran through The Independence Fund, Save Our Allies and eventually the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Verardo also remembered the ordinary ways he showed up for her family during his cancer battle. Even as his own world grew smaller, he kept asking about school days, recitals and science projects.
— Michael Ruiz (@mikerreports) September 15, 2026
Lee never treated that rescue as the closing chapter of his life.
He continued serving wounded veterans through The Independence Fund. Most recently, he worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs under Secretary Doug Collins.
When Hurricane Helene tore through western North Carolina in 2024, Lee again showed up. He lived out of his car while delivering aid and helping communities cut off from normal support.
The obituary released by his family describes a man whose life was measured by the people who made it home because he went toward danger: wounded men carried to safety, Afghan families given another chance, disaster victims who thought they had been forgotten, and veterans whose lives were better because he never stopped serving.
That record makes the way Lee died even harder to take.
Fox reported that his esophageal cancer was directly linked to burn-pit exposure during his deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those pits were used to dispose of waste at overseas bases, exposing service members to toxic smoke. Years later, veterans began facing cancers and other serious illnesses tied to what they breathed while serving their country.
The Department of Veterans Affairs now lists esophageal cancer among the gastrointestinal cancers presumed to be connected to burn-pit exposure for qualifying veterans. That recognition matters because veterans no longer have to prove the medical connection case by case when they meet the service requirements.
The PACT Act expanded care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins. It covers a broad range of cancers and chronic illnesses and recognizes Iraq and Afghanistan among the locations where qualifying veterans are presumed to have encountered toxic exposure.
Those benefits cannot restore the years lost to disease. They do acknowledge a truth veterans and their families fought for years to establish: the danger did not always end when the deployment did.
"Thank you Sean Michael Lee for your service" and praying 🙏 for everyone missing Sean. Sad story
— ChristyFromTO (@Christy_fromTO) September 15, 2026
Former Special Forces sniper Tim Kennedy remembered Lee as one of the finest men ever to serve the country, saying he could always be found wherever people needed help.
That is the thread running through every chapter of Lee’s life: Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, North Carolina and the VA.
To one family, he was simply Uncle Sean.
He kept showing up.
America lost a veteran, a rescuer and a patriot on September 13. The people he brought home — and the families who still have their loved ones because he answered the call — are Sean Michael Lee’s legacy.
May he rest in peace.
