The American Veterans Who Fight ISIS

Two American military veterans decided to fight with a 

Kurdish militia against ISIS in Syria. They captured their 

harrowing journey on video, and say the Kurds need 

more support from the U.S. to succeed. 

Photo: Bruce Windorski

A former Army Ranger and a Marine veteran join Kurdish fighters against Islamic State in Syria

Bruce Windorski could hear Islamic State fighters taunting him as he peered down the moonlit Syrian village street early this year. Their voices were getting louder, and their aim seemed to be getting better.

The 40-year-old former Army Ranger from Wisconsin reached into his bag of semi-reliable grenades, chose one, pulled the pin and tossed it over the wall. There was a blast, he says, and the jeers came to an abrupt halt. “It was definitely a satisfying event.”

Marine combat veteran Jamie Lane, 29, here at home 

in Las Vegas, traveled to Syria early this year to join 

Kurdish fighters in their war against Islamic State 

militants. Photo: Isaac Brekken for WSJ

But the battle continued for days. As militants closed in one night, Jamie Lane, a Marine combat veteran who had traveled from California to fight, wondered if they would make it out alive. “We’re holding our ground,” he says quietly in a video he took in the pitch dark as gunfire crackles. “I imagine it will go until dawn.”

The men are part of an unusual fringe of American veterans joining the war against Islamic State. They go, even as their president and Pentagon leaders strive to keep U.S. forces out of the ground war.

Jamie Lane posed with his weapon in Syria 
early this year. Photo: Jamie Lane via AP

Mr. Windorski and Mr. Lane, 29, joined other Westerners going into combat alongside the Kurdish fighters who have proved to be one of the most effective forces confronting Islamic State. They met fighters from America and England, Greece and Australia, Israel and Iran.

No one has good numbers, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates fewer than 100 Americans have gone to fight Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Still, as military veterans hear of the route to the front lines, more are going, says Lu Lobello, a Marine combat veteran in Las Vegas who has helped some join the battle.

“America is not fighting Islamic State,” he says, “but Americans are.”

Mr. Windorski and Mr. Lane augment their accounts with videos, photos and notes they took during their travels, elements of which aren’t independently verifiable. The FBI declines to discuss the men, and U.S. military officials say they don’t typically track volunteers like them.

Unlike Americans joining Islamic State, who can face terrorism charges, citizens like them risk little trouble back home. U.S. officials say volunteering to fight overseas, while discouraged, isn’t illegal if an American isn’t joining an enemy or group the U.S. labels terrorist.

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