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From Jacksonville, vets look to rejoin fight in Iraq, take on ISIS
Leaving in a few weeks
Mon, May 4, 2015
In weeks, Sean Rowe and eight other veterans of the U.S. military will be flying into the murky world of opposition forces confronting ISIS.
His group, Veterans Against ISIS, has been raising money and recruits for months for a journey back to the land where Rowe and most of his recruits have already fought once: Iraq.
“I’m really eager to go,” Rowe said Monday. “I’m impatient because it needs to be done.”
If nothing else, Rowe is deadly serious.
The 32-year-old former Army engineer showed up to a San Marco restaurant Monday with a determined demeanor and in strapping physical shape.
But what Rowe and his associates can’t know is exactly who they’ll be fighting alongside when they arrive in the Middle East.
Over 1,500 rebel groups exist in Syria alone, according to Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
The Kurds in Northern Iraq, Syria and Turkey also have an alphabet soup of entities fighting against ISIS. Some, like the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, are themselves recognized by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations.
Rowe said he’d considered that, but feels sure of his contacts.
The initial group of nine is made up of four men with infantry backgrounds with two combat medics.
“They’re committed, they’re ready and they have the money to go,” Rowe said. “We have a team of four to follow in 30 to 60 days.
“Hopefully the rest, we have about 23 total that we’re talking to, they should be straggling in throughout the next 6 months to a year.”
Raising money for the expedition has been a problem, Rowe said, making training together an impossibility.
“I barely have enough money to get over there,” he said. “We’re going to depend on a week of training when we get there.
“I’m going to make sure we do medical training, weapons training and it’s going to take time to acquire the weapons we want, which will depend on the funding we get.
“There’s going to be a lot to go over.”
Despite the obvious danger, as well as logistic and financial obstacles, Rowe said he feels this is a chance to right a wrong. He noted the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30.
“Can you imagine how they felt?” he asked. “We’re pretty much going through the same thing right now with Iraq, though.
“The way we see it is, maybe what motivates us is the fact that we’re Iraq War veterans. But really, it’s more than that.”
Rowe said he sees this fight as simply good against evil.
“There’s a lot of evil around in the world, but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it,” he said. “This is something we can do something about.
“These guys are going around slaughtering, raping, torturing women and children and they need to be stopped. It’s as simple as that.”
What difference the conglomeration of veterans from around the country can do in the massive turmoil that is the Middle East remains unclear.
Still, they’re going.
Someone will be running the group’s website, veteransagainstisis.org, while they’re gone and acting as a point of communication for the men while they’re gone.
“If we can, as we go, we’re going to try to take pictures, video maybe,” he said. “We want to show people that we’re for real and we’re over there.”
The men will face a rough time before ever reaching the fighting. They will be leaving with limited funds, depending upon shadowy resistance fighters with uncertain allegiances to take them to a country where crucifixions and beheadings are once again commonplace.
Rowe, at least, appears to be OK with that.
“I strongly believe in God and believe he is going to take care of me no matter what,” he said. “I believe he has something for me to do or I wouldn’t be here today.”
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Times-Union)
Leaving in a few weeks
Mon, May 4, 2015
In weeks, Sean Rowe and eight other veterans of the U.S. military will be flying into the murky world of opposition forces confronting ISIS.
His group, Veterans Against ISIS, has been raising money and recruits for months for a journey back to the land where Rowe and most of his recruits have already fought once: Iraq.
“I’m really eager to go,” Rowe said Monday. “I’m impatient because it needs to be done.”
If nothing else, Rowe is deadly serious.
The 32-year-old former Army engineer showed up to a San Marco restaurant Monday with a determined demeanor and in strapping physical shape.
But what Rowe and his associates can’t know is exactly who they’ll be fighting alongside when they arrive in the Middle East.
Over 1,500 rebel groups exist in Syria alone, according to Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
The Kurds in Northern Iraq, Syria and Turkey also have an alphabet soup of entities fighting against ISIS. Some, like the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, are themselves recognized by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations.
Rowe said he’d considered that, but feels sure of his contacts.
The initial group of nine is made up of four men with infantry backgrounds with two combat medics.
“They’re committed, they’re ready and they have the money to go,” Rowe said. “We have a team of four to follow in 30 to 60 days.
“Hopefully the rest, we have about 23 total that we’re talking to, they should be straggling in throughout the next 6 months to a year.”
Raising money for the expedition has been a problem, Rowe said, making training together an impossibility.
“I barely have enough money to get over there,” he said. “We’re going to depend on a week of training when we get there.
“I’m going to make sure we do medical training, weapons training and it’s going to take time to acquire the weapons we want, which will depend on the funding we get.
“There’s going to be a lot to go over.”
Despite the obvious danger, as well as logistic and financial obstacles, Rowe said he feels this is a chance to right a wrong. He noted the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30.
“Can you imagine how they felt?” he asked. “We’re pretty much going through the same thing right now with Iraq, though.
“The way we see it is, maybe what motivates us is the fact that we’re Iraq War veterans. But really, it’s more than that.”
Rowe said he sees this fight as simply good against evil.
“There’s a lot of evil around in the world, but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it,” he said. “This is something we can do something about.
“These guys are going around slaughtering, raping, torturing women and children and they need to be stopped. It’s as simple as that.”
What difference the conglomeration of veterans from around the country can do in the massive turmoil that is the Middle East remains unclear.
Still, they’re going.
Someone will be running the group’s website, veteransagainstisis.org, while they’re gone and acting as a point of communication for the men while they’re gone.
“If we can, as we go, we’re going to try to take pictures, video maybe,” he said. “We want to show people that we’re for real and we’re over there.”
The men will face a rough time before ever reaching the fighting. They will be leaving with limited funds, depending upon shadowy resistance fighters with uncertain allegiances to take them to a country where crucifixions and beheadings are once again commonplace.
Rowe, at least, appears to be OK with that.
“I strongly believe in God and believe he is going to take care of me no matter what,” he said. “I believe he has something for me to do or I wouldn’t be here today.”
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Times-Union)
