One Soldier by Dillon Hillier

Author:Dillon Hillier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2016-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

12.

REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE

5 DECEMBER 2014

WHEN I LEFT CANADA, I HARBOURED THE HOPE THAT I WOULD BE the first of several Westerners who would arrive in Kurdistan to fight ISIS in Lieutenant Ali’s unit. But by this time, I was still the lone volunteer. The other members of Kerry Dragon’s closed Facebook group were no closer to arriving. I told them about being in battle at Tal al-Ward, yet it was becoming apparent that they probably would not be coming. One of the guys, named Sam, was in Africa doing some contract work for a diamond company. There were a variety of other reasons, some legit, others bullshit—financial concerns, family problems, work, etc. I understood the hesitation. Coming to Kurdistan was a dangerous mission, but I’m convinced that the greatest cause of angst and hesitation was not ISIS itself, but the fact that we would be operating outside the official sanction of the state. Putting your life on the line in battle is one thing, but doing so without the weight of your own government backing you up is something entirely different.

Soldiers are like everyone else in the sense that we want to know we are doing the right thing. This affirmation comes from our own sense of justice, but also the knowledge that our government and people back home support whatever mission we are on. There’s a comfort that comes with this, but in its absence, a soldier’s only guide is his own conviction. That’s what scares people the most. However, I knew I was in the right and that my mission was just. Perhaps my strident libertarianism was what allowed me to operate with a conviction that my mission was justifiable, even without some government official publicly patting me on the back. The lack of additional Western volunteers was a disappointment, but in hindsight, it should not have been a surprise.

There was an exception, though. From the very beginning of my correspondence with the members of Kerry Dragon’s group, one man stood out from the rest for his keenness to join the fight against ISIS. Ethan is a Texan and a former American marine who had served a tour of duty in Iraq in 2006. During the previous months and weeks I had built up a pretty good rapport with Ethan and knew that he wasn’t bullshitting when he said he was coming. While at the Sulaymaniyah Peshmerga base, I got a message that he had bought his ticket and a life insurance policy and was on his way. Of course the first American to be on the ground with the Peshmerga would be a Texan.

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