Wednesday was a fierce day of fighting in Iraq. The self-proclaimed Islamic State set off 21 car bombs in Ramadi as Iraqi forces gained ground in Tikrit, re-taking control of a military hospital there.
Back in the U.S., the debate continues about how best to deal with the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. But for some veterans the time for talk is over. Unknown numbers of American war vets have taken up with foreign fighters battling ISIS.
The Texas Standard speaks to retired Marine Corp. Sergeant Patrick Maxwell, who lives in Austin. Maxwell left the military with an honorable discharge in 2011. More recently he was a volunteer fighter with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
Maxwell says doesn't necessarily disagree with the U.S.'s handling of ISIS in Iraq, but he says that his reasons for fighting the terrorists were more personal.
“I’m very libertarian in my beliefs and I don’t think we need to be committing U.S. boots to the ground to do another long war like that, " he says. "But myself as a private citizen – if I want to go take a vacation and shoot some terrorists in the process, that should be my own business.”
Although Maxwell said his experience was eye-opening, it wasn't as active as you would imagine.
“We weren’t actively seeking out the enemy,” Maxwell says. “There’s not a lot of incentive to go out and find the enemy and engage them, so [it’s] … sitting back and watching each other across a no-man’s land with trenches and flags set up.”
Realizing they wouldn't be engaging in a large scale offensive, Maxwell returned to the U.S. in January, two months before his initially anticipated return home.
“In a perfect world, back with a rifle in my hand and actually able to do something that I want to do? Yes, but I don’t think that’s the way it would play out. I think it would be back to the same way it was – that political correctness, 'let’s keep him out of the direct line of fire.' … I don’t foresee if I went back that it would’ve changed anything at all."
