RIP, died trying to make a change, sacrificing his life to protect others. It's unfortunate he succumbed to his wounds, but he lived valiantly and honorably. Few people in this world have the personal courage and integrity to step up like he has and it's a real fuckin' shame that we lost one.
RIP, hopefully the Kurds help get his body home or give a proper funeral at least.
Going out to fight a war on a whim because you're frustrated by an act of terror isn't really all that smart an idea. Especially if you're just a random fuckin civ with no real training. There's quite a bit of difference between checking the quality of a phone line and bomb clearing.
Joining the actual military to get the training and skills required to do your duties correctly would probably have helped a bit more than joining a resistance force.
Brave, but foolish.
It's called stepping up to the plate.
RIP.
Dying to make a difference. He probably touched a lot of lives, at home and overseas...
Probably took a lot of lives too. Oorah.
By that logic the Kurds should all have just rolled over and let everyone else steam over them.
I get the thrust of your point, I do (or at least I certainly hope I do) but if no one stepped up to stand against oppression or genocide because they didn't think they had the right skillset, well this world would be a lot, lot darker a place.
Oh god no, I'm not saying "put up and shut up" to people being oppressed. The Kurdish fighting back is something that's totally understandable as you have a bunch of absolute shitlords trying to take your home for their ~religious state~ of homicide and bigotry. They've suffered under this for a while, and are made up of ex military alongside the militias. They would all be speaking the same language and have exposure to weapons of war and all that stuff.
I can't work out how throwing a random Brit into the mix who doesn't speak the language, has no real experience with fighting (insurgent or not) and whos only real tie to the Kurds if "fuck ISIS" would massively help. Doctors and those who have had some military training I can understand, sure. But not a telecoms engineer.
It's a shame he's dead from all this, and I do wish we'd find a way to do more to put at stop to ISIS, but I'm not sure random civilians running off to the ME is a tenable solution to the problem. If anything they put themselves at risk of being taken hostage and used for leverage by ISIS (because unlike Hollywood, we do negotiate with terrorists when we have to).
Kurds have military training. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't hand him a rifle and say good luck, as that would be a liability for his team.
Consider this.
You can train someone whose never fired a gun before to fire a gun. The Kurds have US advisors and various westerns who are vets or experienced shooter. Most Kurdish fighters that are say from the US and UK are segregated often into Western units, kinda rare to see ones on the fronts because if ISIS ever captured them, or killed them it'll be a propaganda victory. It happened once IIRC a Canadian fighter was killed and they pasted his face everywhere, and in the video shot his body to shit.
Anyway, this man made a decision to go out and at the very least steam the tide of a horrific murder cult. Anything he did was in the idea and ideal of protecting his fellow country men seeing as it's fairly easy to be an extremist fighter and then go back to your home country in Europe. UK reporting that 1 in 10 fighters returning from Syria are even messed with. It's also about protecting an oppressed people in this region against these barbaric men. This dude had some real stones to forgo his life in the UK to fuck around in Syria.
RIP. He's got balls of steel traveling there on his own to fight for the right cause, also a really nice Moustache imo.
May he get the funeral he deserves.
The Kurds in Iraq actually have a one month training foreigners and Kurds alike must go through in order to fight ISIS.
It's subpar and Americans with actual military experience find it laughably inadequate, but it's more than just being tossed a gun and pointing which way to shoot.
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