Wow: Ex-US Soldier Speaks Out About Joining Kurdish Forces to Fight ISIS

Daniel Doherty | October 07, 2014 3:45 PM

It’s no secret that a dozen or so Americans have already left the United States to join ISIS, presumably to help them butcher civilians, exterminate infidels, and expand their caliphate. In fact, a US teenager was recently apprehended trying to join the terrorist organization, but was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport shortly before attempting to flee the country.

But apparently there aren’t just traitors and turncoats fighting overseas anymore, either. Right now, there are at least two Americans, frustrated by the current administration’s foreign policy approach to the rise of ISIS, who are actually fighting alongside our allies in Iraq.

One recently sat down with USA Today (after being wounded by shrapnel, as it happens) to explain why he felt compelled to serve:

Like many Americans, Jordan Matson is outraged by the brutality of the Islamic State. But unlike virtually every other American, he decided to take on the militants head-on. Now, the 28-year-old Racine, Wis., man is recovering in a hospital here in northeastern Syria from a shrapnel wound in his foot, the result of a mortar attack by Islamic State fighters in Jazaa, along the Iraqi border.

Tall with slightly graying hair, Matson conceded that people back home might call him crazy for joining Kurdish forces three weeks ago to help end the Islamic State's reign of terror. "I couldn't just sit and watch Christians being slaughtered anymore," he said in an interview with USA TODAY. "I got sick of giving online sympathy. Five minutes of lip service does nothing. These people are fighting for their homes, for everything they have."

So, my friends, he went to the Middle East to defend the innocent, and was wounded in the process. That’s remarkable. But what’s even more remarkable, however, is that Matson told USA today that the Kurds "don't pay [him]" and that he self-financed his trip overseas. This is a man, it seems, who is motivated only by altruism.

Incidentally, the only other known US citizen (according to Matson) fighting for the Kurds hasn’t yet been publicly identified, although now that ISIS is reportedly winning the war, more Americans may soon find themselves risking their lives alongside him.