Portrait of the front lines

Aug. 26—Editor's note: This is the third installment in a three-part series about local people traveling to Eastern Europe to help Ukrainians in need.

Jacques La Flèche said he was following a calling when he traveled to Ukraine to document the war as a photojournalist earlier this year.

"When Russia actually invaded, there was this ... completely undeniable feeling inside of me that I tried to push down, but I couldn't, and I knew I needed to go," he said.

Born and raised in Medford, La Flèche said he was in Los Angeles, looking for a place to live, at the time of the invasion.

A love of cinematography led him to pursue an acting career, but previous travels also taught him he wanted to work as a war correspondent, an ambition he was approaching from an academic perspective at the time.

When Russia invaded Ukraine last February, he followed that irrepressible feeling, he said, and was in the country within a couple of months. Landing in Warsaw, Poland, he worked his way to the Ukrainian border. From there he rode in the back of a medical train, were he met other war correspondents and traveled with them into Lviv, then Kyiv.

He found himself working within a support network of other journalists more experienced than himself. He combined what he referred to as a theoretical understanding of photojournalism with the advice of more wizened correspondents as he worked on the front lines for the first time.

In Ukraine, because journalists were reporting from so many different countries, the usual secrecy and competitiveness between reporters with a scoop evaporated, he said. They shared information and reviewed each other's work.

After Kyiv, he and many of his companions traveled to Kharkiv, he said, an area near the border with Russia that was a hot conflict zone then and now.

The Russians were trying to take the city at the time, attempting to encircle it and shelling the outskirts, he said. By the time he left, the Ukrainians had pushed the Russians almost all the way back to their border in some areas.

After a long day documenting sites in conflict areas, and guided by the Ukrainian military, the reporters would sometimes find a relatively safe area and enjoy a barbecue in the evenings.

"We'd watch as the incendiary bombs are going off and the shells are exploding near us, but we're chatting and talking about the day's events and eating quail," he said.

Ukrainian civilians moved between black and white, he said. Sometimes they hid underground; sometimes they went to get groceries and live their lives as best they could. He said he found the Ukrainian people to be incredibly resilient.

Family and cultural ties are strong, he said, and this allows them to see the war not as what defines their lives but as a miserable moment in time, something to be endured because they are determined to preserve Ukraine.

While Ukraine was La Flèche's first foray into work as a war correspondent, his interests have carried him around the world. He was living in Arizona about five years ago, he said, when he walked over the border into Mexico for an hour.

The experience sparked a curiosity about different cultures, he said, and those close to him advised him to travel.

"I did something I never would have dreamed of doing previously; I kind of chose the last place on Earth I thought I'd want to go," he said. "It's really a healthy all-in approach."

He went to India in 2017. His interest in cinematography inspired him to throw a camera and two rolls of film in his bag at the last minute. In Kashmir he started trying to work as a photojournalist, he said. He managed to find and interview people involved with Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, a group known as terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on who you talk to. But his work was interrupted by illness, he said.

"I was told it was a brain parasite. It probably was. I was so sick; I thought I was probably going to die," he said.

He left Kashmir with an unfinished story, virtually no money, so sick he could hardly move, riding out of the Himalayas on a bus moving along what he described as hellacious roads. That's when he decided this was the life he wanted.

"If this didn't chew me up and spit me out, then this is one of my life's paths, and I think I need to continue," he said.

Over the past five years, he's used a film camera to create a portfolio shot in 34 countries.

His work in Ukraine and other projects have forced a switch from the depth of film to the speed of digital photography, he said.

When he got home from Ukraine, he moved to Ashland.

"There's a decompression that has to happen," he said.

While working with other journalists at times could be fun, he said, he also spent time working alone, interviewing civilians about war crimes such as rape and torture.

When he found people who were personally affected, talking to them was not the same as interviewing dispassionate soldiers, he explained.

"They often wouldn't speak. They would lead you, and they would motion to an area where fluids or instruments told you what happened. Or they would sort of motion at someone, like if you asked if anyone had been raped," he said.

Sometimes after showing him what answered his question, they would go into another room, and he would hear them weeping or screaming with rage.

When he tried to describe the experience of witnessing so much grief, his sentences were broken and short; he resorted to facial expressions, wincing like he'd been hit in the stomach as he verbalized the memories.

He found one family after they had spent two weeks hiding in their cellar, a space he estimated to be 4 by 6 feet. The family of five hid there with their pets while the Russians used their home as a command post and exchanged fire with the Ukrainian army.

After the Russians left, he said, he found them as they emerged from their hiding place, physically shaking.

The family escaped the suffering many in their village endured from the Russians, he said, but they were traumatized.

"There's moments where you think, what am I doing here? I have no business bringing this up with these people, even though I'm here to do this work," La Flèche said.

He said some people here have told him they believe the war in Ukraine is over or at least winding down, which surprised him. He said he expects it to last years.

He said he intends to return to Ukraine this winter.

Reach Mail Tribune reporter Morgan Rothborne at mrothborne@rosebudmedia.com or 541-776-4487. Follow her on Twitter @MRothborne.