A U.S. military veteran with several tours of duty in Iraq under his belt joined Kurds in Syria battling the Islamic State (ISIS), saying it was as easy as "booking a flight to Miami Beach."
In an
interview with Fox News, the veteran, who gave his name only as "John," told the network he signed up through a Facebook page, sent his resume, was accepted, bought an airplane ticket and was on his way.
"There was a Facebook page for it. I shot them a message; expressed my interest. They got back to me, told me to send them, essentially, a resume for their vetting purposes," he told Fox News.
Story continues below video.
After that, he said, "I just went online and bought a ticket. It was that easy. It was like booking a flight to Miami Beach."
The recruitment process is murky, the veteran told Fox News — he was never really clear about who actually had hired him, and says he was never paid.
"What I believe is that they are European go-betweens. They are not in Kurdistan. They operate receiving information of interested Westerners and then they either relay it or make a decision themselves on whether or not this person is suitable to work with the YPG [Kurdish People's Protection Units]" he said.
When he arrived in Iraq, he was met by a YPG representative and a Scottish recruit and driven straight to the front lines.
"John" told Fox that he met other Westerners from Britain, Canada and the U.S. during his time in Syria, but was concerned about the recruiting process.
"It's extremely dangerous in that they're taking anyone with no military experience, no age requirements, no physical restrictions. They are just taking people there, giving them a gun, saying, 'Hey, good luck, buddy.'"
The poorly equipped YPGs' lack of body armor meant he had to stuff his vest with a Bible.
He had enlisted out of anger at the U.S. bombing campaign and the beheading of Western journalists, but said that after ISIS put a price on his head, he decided it was time to come home.
"I'm an American first," he told Fox News.
"John" is not the first American to tell of his experiences fighting with the Kurds against ISIS.
Army veteran
Jordan Matson told Radio Free Europe that he had battled ISIS on the side of the Kurds.
"Anyone who didn't conform to their [ISIS'] way of life could either convert, be killed or get driven off their land. I thought that enough was enough, and I decided to come here to fight," said Matson, who was wounded in action in Syria.
Matson told CNN, which estimates there have been 100 or more Americans fighting with the Kurds, that he went to war by flying from his Wisconsin home to Turkey, where he was met by Kurdish representatives and taken to Syria.
"The amount of trouble I could be in is, you know, still up in the air. It's a legal gray area, what I did," "John" told Fox News.
The YPG's Kandal Amed told Radio Free Europe, "Foreign fighters are in all fronts with the People's Protection Units. Germans and Russians, others, wanted to be part of the new spirit that was created for the peoples of the Middle East.
"Among our ranks, you will find Americans, Germans, and others, all men, but we expect the arrival of foreign women, too."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.