Army Paratrooper Remembered for Helping Afghans and Helene Victims

Sean Michael Lee devoted his life to serving others.

The Army veteran spent more than two decades in uniform, serving across multiple deployments and assignments, including as a paratrooper with the renowned 82nd Airborne Division. But his commitment to helping people continued long after his military career ended.

“Sean’s entire life was about serving others. Even up until the very end, he was always thinking about other people,” Steven Rozina told News Outlet in an exclusive interview.

Rozina, who now serves as deputy chief operating officer of the nonprofit Independence Fund, met Lee after joining the organization. The group provides services and support to wounded veterans, allowing both men to continue their careers of service.

“He immediately took me under his wing and taught me how to help others,” Rozina said.

Lee’s post-military work took him across three continents as he continued finding ways to assist people in crisis, Rozina said.

When Afghanistan fell in 2021, Lee once again answered the call. He helped evacuate thousands of Afghan allies, including people who had worked alongside American forces and remained friends to those who assisted them, Rozina explained.

After that mission, Lee turned his attention to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. From Poland, he helped establish aid stations and organize supply lines. When Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall was seriously wounded while covering the war, Lee also helped coordinate the effort to bring him home. “Sean was never the guy on the front page of the paper, but he was always there,” Rozina said.

Working from Poland through the nonprofit Save Our Allies, Lee played a key role in the rescue operation for Hall, who was badly injured in a Russian attack while reporting near Kyiv.

Lee’s service continued in 2024, when Hurricane Helene devastated communities across the Southeast, including western North Carolina, his home state.

“Within a few hours, Sean was in the car and heading toward the mountains,” Rozina told News Outlet.

“I spent a lot of time with Sean up in the mountains. I got the call that he needed me to come with him, and we slept in our cars while helping establish aid for different communities,” Rozina recalled.

But when many of the volunteers eventually returned home, Rozina said, “Sean stayed.”

“Sean stayed in the mountains, he lived in tents, stayed with communities that didn’t have a lot, helped rebuild family homes, helped rebuild… there was a family store that, it was the only thing that these people had, and he was there, he was always there for somebody else,” Rozina explained.

Lee died Tuesday as a result of cancer he developed from exposure to toxic burn pits during his time deployed in the Middle East. He was still working out how to keep helping people until the very end of his life, Rozina said.

“I have a text message from last week where he’s making plans for the next mission. The next thing that he wanted to do to make sure if another hurricane hits North Carolina, how are we going to respond? If an earthquake happens, where are we gonna go and how can we be more efficient? How can we help more people?” Rozina told News Outlet.

“Sean, in his own words, was a good ‘idea fairy.’ Sean came up with great ideas and really it was… Sean’s plans were to be prepared, always be prepared. And it was ideas on how can we be prepared for the next emergency; the next time a veteran needs us, how can [we] incorporate our veteran community into helping others? And that was his goal was really to spread who he was, that ‘send me’ ethos,” Rozina said.

Lee’s work, through the Independence Fund and through Save Our Allies, was about helping people and using his own gifts and talents to do so, Rozina explained.

When asked what he thought Sean’s final message to the world would be, he said, “Any help is still help.”

“You might feel like you’re not doing much, but doing something means a lot. So, do what you can,” Rozina said of his late friend. “Do the best you can when you’re doing it. And do it with a grateful heart. What Sean did: He did the best he could at everything. And those little things add up in the end. He’s touched so many lives. He has blessed a lot of deserving people and I know that his memory is not going to fade.”