Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
A promising American chased a cause, crossed an ocean, put on a Russian uniform, and died in Ukraine. This is the stark, uncomfortable arc of Michael Gloss.
Hook: From Idealism To A Battlefield No One Expected
Ah, kids…
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.”
That’s in the Book, and I understand the gist. In general, irresponsible parents spawn irresponsible kids. Almost every serious smoker I ever met had at least one smoking parent. Kids model the behavior of their parents, even when they are rebellious, distant, or cruel. Oftentimes, it is because of those things. By contrast, put in the work as a parent and you will afford your offspring the best opportunity to succeed.
Regardless of how they are raised, kids are like little homemade boats. You carefully craft that vessel as best you can, but at some point, you have to push that thing out into the pond. Once that’s done, your kid is making his or her own decisions. There’s no turning back.
I’ve had to do that three times myself. Each iteration was comparably excruciating. Watching my kids make some of the same mistakes I did was particularly poignant. Thanks to the grace of God, my three turned out OK. Tragically, however, despite a parent’s best efforts, sometimes that is not the case.
Case Study: How Michael Gloss Slid From Idealism To War
We are about to discuss one family’s absolute nightmare. I’m not making light of it or in any way diminishing the gravitas of the events surrounding this young man’s life and untimely death. In the brief life of Michael Gloss, we see a man who was exploited by the most corrupt regime of the modern age. His death touches on politics, rebellion, and the scourge of mental illness.
As near as we can tell, Michael Gloss started out well. His father, Larry Gloss, was a US Navy Desert Storm veteran who currently works in cybersecurity. His mom, Juliane Gallina, is a US Naval Academy grad who was the first female to lead the brigade of midshipmen. After leaving the Navy, Juliane took a job at the CIA. She is currently the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation.
I don’t know Larry or Juliane myself. Any deductions I have made come from reading news reports. However, it is a safe bet that Michael was likely raised fairly well. Both of his parents were Navy vets, and his mother is a spy. They are clearly smart, conscientious, patriotic Americans. However, sometimes even with the best of foundations, kids can go off the rails. That’s what happened with Michael Gloss.
Details: From Vienna, Virginia To A Russian Uniform
At some point, Michael became radicalized. No offense, but I can see that in this very space. I’ve been writing these weekly GunsAmerica columns for literally years now. I read every word of the comments. Most readers are insightful, respectful, and thought-provoking. Reading your opinions often makes me rethink my own, which is always a healthy thing. However, a small but statistically significant percentage of you dudes are flat-out nuts.
It is fascinating to ponder why that is. We live in the very earliest throes of the Information Age. Never before in history has the human animal been bombarded with so much raw data starting at such a young age. Personally, I think that’s where a lot of our ADHD comes from. We take newborns and subject them to flashing lights and frenetic sounds every waking minute because that’s the easy way to keep them occupied and quiet. Then they grow up unable to pay attention or manage a steady train of thought. We really should have seen that coming. One side effect of this constant barrage of information is that folks can get emotionally invested in some remarkably spurious causes. There are countless examples.
Case Studies: When Narratives Replace Reality
Charlie Kirk wasn’t a racist in any traditional sense. Any unbiased thinking person who bothers to invest an hour or two listening to the guy talk will draw that conclusion. However, a warped young man driven by sound bites and carefully sculpted narratives got sufficiently agitated as to climb up onto a rooftop with an antique bolt-action rifle and murder him in front of his little girl.
Leftists around the globe have been rioting in support of Palestine. This is despite the fact that Hamas murdered 1,200 men, women, and children in a single day and will flat-out execute you if they even think you might be gay. It’s pretty nonsensical if you think about it.
In the case of Michael Gloss, this poor kid got so agitated over contrived environmental issues and curated online propaganda that he abandoned his life in the United States and made his way to Russia. Once there, he was convinced that he was going to save the planet by enlisting in the Russian Army. In short order, he was sent to Ukraine and killed alongside countless thousands of actual Russians also duped into becoming the Bad Guys in Putin’s bloody war.
The Guy: School, Sports, And A Hard Turn
Michael Gloss graduated from Oakton High School in Vienna, Virginia. While there, he played both football and lacrosse. He subsequently attended the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he majored in human ecology. I wasn’t there, and I never met the kid myself. However, I’d be willing to bet that some of his human ecology professors were pretty politically out there.
Left-wing apologists often suffer from a most peculiar form of cognitive dissonance. Tyler Robinson, the young man who has admitted to shooting Charlie Kirk, grew up in a conservative Mormon family. However, once he got to college, he began dating a man who identifies as a woman. His personal writings expressed outrage over LGBT causes. I’ve lost track of the times I have seen left-wing commentators allege that Robinson must have been some kind of closet MAGA operative. Really? Gee whiz, guys, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, that’s most likely a duck.
Michael’s obituary read, in part, “Michael grew to be physically strong and tall, thoughtful and principled, and from an early age he used these strengths to protect and guard against injustice of all forms — whether it was on the playground, on the field or in politics.”
Reading between the lines, I’m thinking he likely got radicalized in college before launching on his ill-advised voyage of discovery.
Darker Factors: Mental Health And Manipulation
As I researched this sordid tale, I found references to Michael’s unspecified mental illness. It is estimated that 23.4% of Americans suffer from some kind of diagnosable mental disorder. 5.6% of US adults experience some sort of serious mental illness event each year. At some point in their lives, nearly half of Americans would meet the criteria for mental illness of some sort.
Anxiety disorders are the most common. Major depression affects around 8% of Americans. Part of that is certainly the result of increased surveillance. In eras past, ADHD was just little boys being crazy, while depression was often treated unsuccessfully with alcohol. Regardless of the particulars, in the case of Michael Gloss, this toxic combination of nature and nurture ultimately killed him.
Cannon Fodder: Front Lines, Donetsk, 2024
Gloss signed a contract to join the Russian armed forces in 2023 and was assigned to an airborne regiment. His status as an American citizen who was the son of a CIA officer inevitably earned him a certain degree of notoriety. Regardless, he was deployed to the front lines in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in short order.
As I type these words, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has ground on for either three or eleven years, depending upon where you establish the starting point. Both the government of Ukraine and the non-partisan UK Center for Strategic and International Studies place total Russian casualties in excess of one million troops as of mid-2025. Russian independent media has verified at least 135,000 Russian KIA. That number is undoubtedly low, as it is the result of scrubbing social media, scant official records, and documenting physical tombstones. Regardless of how you gauge it, the war in Ukraine has been a bloodbath for both sides. That doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
On 4 April 2024, Michael Gloss was caught in an artillery barrage during military operations near Donetsk. His father later reported that he was hit while trying to rescue an injured comrade. What scant information that made it back to the States indicates that he bled to death as a result of his wounds.
Key Timeline And Facts: Michael Gloss
| Name | Michael Gloss |
|---|---|
| Background | Oakton High School; College of the Atlantic, human ecology |
| Enlisted | Front lines in the Donetsk region, Ukraine |
| Deployment | Public praise in Russia; the award and naming reported later |
| Date of Death | 4 April 2024, artillery barrage near Donetsk |
| Aftermath | Public praise in Russia; award and naming reported later |
Hard Truths & Lessons
- Propaganda preys on purpose-seeking youth. It sells certainty, then cashes the check in blood.
- Information overload distorts judgment. Endless feeds can turn causes into obsessions.
- Mental health matters. Untreated issues make manipulation easier and outcomes worse.
- War devours the idealistic first. Once you step onto that field, reality rules.
Ruminations: What Michael Gloss’s Death Should Teach Us
Michael Gloss was known to have suffered from a diagnosable mental disorder, though particulars are vague. Vladimir Putin publicly lauded Gloss by name. Russia named a school in the occupied Donetsk region after him. In August of 2025, Gloss was awarded the Russian Order of Courage. His award was delivered to his grieving parents by US envoy Steve Witcoff. I’m not convinced that brought Michael’s folks a great deal of comfort.
Everything about the sordid story of Michael Gloss is simply tragic. Whipped into an ideological furor, a misguided, mentally ill young man fled to a dictatorship and apparently willingly volunteered to go to war on behalf of a monster. Modern war is horrible, bloody, and shockingly efficient. Michael was subsequently blown to pieces alongside literally hundreds of thousands of similarly misguided young soldiers, all because one dark, twisted man cannot bring himself to say, “Stop.” It still amazes me that, this deep into the 21st century, nations still go to war over the whims of a single lunatic.
Related Reads from GunsAmerica Digest
- What Ukraine Teaches About Small Arms In Modern War
- AK Platform Deep Dive: From Cold War To Modern Fighting Rifles
- How Propaganda Targets Young Men In Wartime
Will is still trying to figure out what he really wants to be when he grows up. However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation.
Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o’clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times…always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains.
Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal and the movie “Aliens.”
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