Eulogy for Ramali Sukarta Kusnadi January 23, 1977 – April 6, 2025
I met Rama three years ago in a safe house in Eastern Poland. Sounds like the opening of a spy thriller, doesn’t it? But this was no novel-just the sort of strange circumstances that seemed to happen in our line of work.
We were both part of Task Force Yankee, a collection of military veterans and miscellaneous people who were trying to make a difference in Ukraine. Rama, of course, was one of the few who actually knew what was going on. There were phone conferences with characters dialing in from places as far-flung as Alaska, and Rama was orchestrating the movement of people and medical supplies across the border.
My job was logistics. I arrived with two others: a dental technician and a fellow who claimed to be a National Guard medic. The medic, as it turned out, was a fraud. The dental technician, after enduring a tirade from one of Yankee’s more volatile senior members (a nurse who had mental illness issues), promptly quit and fled back to civilization. Such was the dignified chaos of our operation. After I departed from Task Force Yankee, we remained friends.
Rama had an insatiable appetite for adventure—which, I must say, made friendship with him sometimes difficult. One day he was here; the next, he was in Poland. Then he’d reappear, and we’d debate where to have dinner. I’d suggest a place, and he’d dismiss it with a wave: “Too far from my house.”
He was also, extremely intelligent. A formidable chess player, a whiz at IT networks, and a man who had made a living setting up cell towers. He had served in the Army—Reserves, I believe—and, like me, had some experience with M1A1 tanks. He had the irreverent humor common among soldiers and made friends as easily as most people make mistakes.
Rama lived entirely on his own terms-a quality I admired, even when it was inconvenient. He wanted to see everything, do everything, and squeeze every drop out of life. He launched business ventures with the enthusiasm of a man who believed failure was just another story to tell. And he knew everyone-from Eastern Europe to God-knows-where.
Rama was not a man who sought permission to live life. He declared it. He pursued ventures with the optimism of a pioneer and formed friendships like bridges—quickly, sturdily, and all over the world. He lived as he pleased, without apology, and with an appetite for the world that few men retain past their youth.
In an age when so many drift along, waiting for life to show up, Rama ran toward it—sometimes recklessly, sometimes wisely, but always fully. He was, in every proper sense of the word, alive.
And now, he is gone. But not disappeared. No-men like Rama are never truly absent. They leave behind stories, and laughter, and unfinished plans. And if we are wise, we will honor him by living not timidly, but boldly-as he did.
Requiescat in pace.