Recently, the New York Times reported about U.S. military
veterans returning to Iraq to fight the Islamic State (ISIS). A number of American vets have volunteered in
recent months to take up arms against the militants in Iraq and Syria … even as
the Obama Administration has hesitated to put combat troops on the ground. Driven by a blend of motivations — outrage
over the ISIS’s atrocities, boredom with civilian life back home, dismay that
an enemy they tried to neutralize is stronger than ever — they have offered
themselves as pro bono advisers and riflemen in local militias.
Patrick Maxwell is one
of them. With the rise of ISIS, Maxwell,
a former sergeant in the Iraq War … who was selling real estate in Texas … was
finally able to see “the enemy” that was more like a phantom when he was
deployed in Anbar Province in 2006. Horrified
by the atrocities of ISIS, Maxwell decided to volunteer to fight ISIS, along
with other veterans. Yet, while this may
seem admirable, it places the U.S. in an awkward legal position. Some of these veterans end up fighting
alongside Kurdish militias that have ties to groups labeled “terrorist
organizations” by the State Department. This,
of course, is on top of the dangers of being killed or captured in the fight
against ISIS forces.
With ISIS hoisting its
black flag above many Iraqi cities that many U.S. troops spent years working to
secure, Maxwell saw this as a second chance. He connected with a Kurdish military officer online,
packed his body armor, some old uniforms and a faded green ball cap with a TX
flag patch on the front, and flew to Iraq.
Within days, he was on the front lines as a volunteer fighter with
Kurdish security forces (known as the pesh merga) in northern Iraq, peering
through a rifle scope at ISIS fighters as bullets whizzed past.
“More than anything,
they don’t like ISIS and want to help,” said Matthew VanDyke, an American
filmmaker who has spent time this winter with four American veterans covertly training
a militia of Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq to resist ISIS. In a phone interview from Iraq, Mr. VanDyke
said that many veterans spent years honing combat skills in war only to have
them shelved in civilian life and that they are eager for a new mission. “A lot of guys did important stuff overseas
and came home and got stuck in menial jobs, which can be really hard,” he said.
“[This is] kind of a dream job, a chance
to do what they are trained to do without all the red tape and PowerPoints.”
Though there is no
official count, a spokesman for the Y.P.G. Kurdish militia in Syria said that
more than 100-American citizens are fighting there. Though pesh merga officials in Iraq recently
said there were more than 10 Westerners fighting in Iraq, they now say there
are none.
While the U.S.
authorities have tracked and prosecuted citizens who try to join ISIS, it is
unclear how they will respond to Americans’ fighting ISIS … especially since
some Kurdish militias in Syria have ties to groups the State Department
classifies as terrorist organizations.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
No comments:
Post a Comment