On Losing People

Left to right, back to front: Myself, Martin Gruden (Shaheed Rudi Chekdar), Jordan Mactaggart (Shaheed Ciwan Firat), and Jordan Matson, in a house/staging area in Manbij. Half the guys in this photo didn't make it out alive. If anyone reading this knows how to get a hold of the family of Shaheed Rudi (Martin Gruden of Slovenia), Please contact me. If they would like to know, I can tell them about his last day. If they would like to be left alone, then Shaheed Namirin. I hope they find peace. (Photo Jordan Mactaggart Collection)

Lose your sense of humor in a grisly situation, and you'll lose it (Note the tag on the wall, upper right. It says "F.oreign A.ssault G.roup," because acronyms should denote the serious nature, of serious Fuckers, doing serious things.). Gallows humor best humor. This house was occupied by Tabor Yekbun, which Matson was attached to for a time. Ciwan, Rudi and myself were with another Tabor that helped them hold the building down for a while, as it was being used as a staging area for further pushes into the city. Friends and I later called it the "Yekbun Death House' because at least half the Tabor was Shaheed or injured here. There were many Death Houses in Manbij.

     Before I carry on, and eventually finish the 'War is a Drug' Series, I want to talk about this. Losing People. Losing your friends, your Brothers and Sisters. It's intensely painful. I can't find the right words to describe the sensation of wrapping your newly Shaheed friend in a blanket. Words fail me. One quickly gets accustomed to the unattended bodies of enemies, of the smell of rotting flesh. Not so with dead comrades. When their gaze meets yours, it sticks with you. You can only hold their eyes shut and hope you did everything you could, but you will never feel like you did. You will wish you had stepped just a few feet forward and took the bullet for them. And I don't know how to express how this feels. A 2004 study of Vietnam Veterans experiencing PTSD found that: "In this study, we therefore, sought to demonstrate the prominence of combat-related grief-specific symptoms in a sample of Vietnam veterans being treated for PTSD. Our results indicated that indeed this sample of veterans reported high levels of grief-specific symptoms comparable to that found in bereaved individuals whose spouse had recently died..."      

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15474850

And this is a study of War Vets who lost their Comrades many years before. Think long and hard before you go off to war. 

     As part of the coming posts, I'll talk about the last days of three Shaheeds--Ciwan, Firaz, and Rudi. I know many, many Kurdish Shaheeds, but few that I was with in their last. Nevertheless, I'll still talk about some of my Kurdish Hevals who gave all in Manbij. Also, if you're looking for full, graphic descriptions of what happened in these guys last moments, look elsewhere. It's not necessary, and takes or adds nothing to who they were or what they did in life.

     Lastly: I'm not a hero, and don't claim to be one. I'm literally some big thirty-something lurching Midwest dude who showed up in a war zone and did OK. I was able to respond effectively to most things that happened to me, except for one incident that left me temporarily incapacitated and combat ineffective. I'd also had training. In the following posts, I'll talk about people that WERE heroes. Who helped civilians under fire get to safety. Who despite being barely old enough to graduate high school, ran into danger to help the injured Hevals. I've done a few similar things, but because it was drilled into my head when I was younger. Many of these Heroes did it because it was what was in their heart--they couldn't help but be who they were in that situation.

Shaheed Ciwan, upon arriving to Rojava for his Second, and last tour, poses with the Shaheed Poster of his friend Reece Harding. Shaheed Namirin. Til Valhal. (Photo Jordan Mactaggart Collection)

The always tranquil Christian Cemetary in Tel Nasr. A good place to rest.

The Manbij Meatgrinder. (Photo Mactaggart collection)

Shaheed Ciwan, Shaheed Muslim by the morale fire prior to the Shadadee operation. Heval Muslim also Shaheed in Manbij. He was one of my favorite people in Tabor Shaheed Berxwedan.

                                                                                                                                                     Shaheeds Ciwan Firat and Agir Shervan, Jordan Mactaggart and Levi Shirley. Both were from Colorado--the mountains must breed bravery. Shaheed Namirin. Til Valhal.

Shaheed Firaz Kardo,        

Badin al-Imam.  Had truly been everywhere and done everything. Shaheed Namirin. Til Valhal.

Rudy and Kemal display their personalities...

Shaheed Rudi Chekdar, Martin Gruden of Slovenia. Shaheed Namirin. Til Valhal. (Photo Freeman Stevenson)

Shaheed Givarra, Dean Carl Evans, of Britain. Shaheed Namirin. Til Valhal.

Shaheed Amed Kobane, William Savage, Shaheed in the last days of Manbij. Shaheed Namirin. Til Valhal.

     These are the six internationals who gave their lives for the liberation of Manbij. As I said earlier, I'll only be talking about the three I was with at the end. Much attention is paid to the foreign fighters, but we were a tiny part of the operation. The city was taken by Kurds and Arabs. Many, many who gave their lives or who were injured past the point of future functioning. Remember them.

On waiting.

"I fucking love waiting!"

Everybody's wait ends here. No exceptions.

     As much as one would like to believe that time spent in a warzone is a non-stop hail of gunfire, explosions and adrenaline, ninety percent or more of your time is spent waiting. "Hurry up and wait" is the soldier's motto. From Shadadee till the start of Manbij,  most of our time was spent hanging around. We went to Qamishlo and a few other places--we only fought once in Qamishlo--, but our trips to Seluk and back to Qamishlo were basically as a show of force, or as extra security after attacks. We spent months waiting.

     During this time, two more volunteers joined our Tabor, Zinar, a sixty-something world traveler and English teacher who had decided in his autumn years that it was time to experience war.

Note the Grateful Dead Patch. If anybody has this guys contact info, let me know.

     Also joining us was Firaz Kardo (Now Shaheed Firaz), an Egyptian born Kurd with a knack for fixing broken electronics, and a desire to make every space he occupied as luxurious as possible. He installed WIFI and a ceiling fan in our Nokta and insisted on regular trips to Tel Tamar to eat at the Christian restaurant and pick up assorted goodies. I wasn't complaining. He spoke at least five languages, and as a young man joined the Iraqi Communist party to fight Saddam after his father was killed by the regime. Quite the life.

"If we don't do this, WHO WILL?" Miss you, Brother.

     At any rate, for some months, waiting became our lives. Waiting for the Manbij operation, that was to come at any time. We bullshited, argued, made friends with our Kurdish Hevals, cooked food, complained, and generally made the best of things. We went to the local ice cream shop and figured out that sheep ice cream is the best stuff in existence. We watched Band of Brothers on laptop. Good times. Towards the end of May, we noticed American made Chinook helicopters flying low from a Northern meeting area to a southern base on a nightly basis. We were told that American Special Operations Soldiers and higher ups were meeting with YPG officials about the impending Manbij liberation. It wouldn't be long now.

Fighting the Regime in Qamishlo--GoPro footage

     Ok, as promised, I got the Go-Pro footage from my buddy Freeman Stevenson of the fight in Qamishlo, April 22 2016. His Go Pro goes dead about an hour and a half into the fight, so a lot of it isnt seen. Also, Yes, Mormon and Ciwan were aware that twenty minutes of fucking around is far to long for a casevac. We were all a lot more aggressive about first aid after that. Some commanders are better about this than others. For example, when this Tabor, Shaheed Kareem, was pushing through Gunds during the Manbij operation, we had only one fatality, despite several Hevals being shot through the chest. They were given treatment on-site and moved out quickly. I've seen several of them since then, and they're on the mend; Including Heval Aria, from this video. As I've said in the previous post, with enough smart and good natured idealists like Heval Aria, this whole social project will be for something. Anyway, I go into more detail in the previous post, 'War is a Drug, Part Six: Qamishlo.'  More to come.


Note to Roy Gutman, of The Nation: You're decrepit old ass really thinks that the YPG and the Syrian Regime are Pals? IN THE FUTURE there will probably have to be some collusion, to get the country out of its cycle of rubble production and corpse manufacture. It's just the way it's going to have to be. But I assure you, there is no love lost between the SAA and the YPG, let alone a clandestine partnership. You think the SAA and the YPG regularly kill one another to hide the conspiracy, or some such tin-foil hat fuckery? Get the fuck out of Istanbul and out of the pocket of KRG and MIT handlers. Go take a tour of Nusaybin, or any number of Kurdish cities demolished and massacred by the Turkish State. Talk to people outside of a managed environment. Be a journalist, not a hitman.