It was dusk and bats swooped the fields. The peshmerga bases glowed like bonfires along the front. The foreign fighters had climbed to the roof of the house to talk away from their peshmerga hosts.

“Scientists came up with this theory,” Jones said. “You can’t observe something without changing it.”

“Reality might change now,” Park agreed. “It’s like Schrödinger’s cat. You know we can’t ever see things for what they are because even to observe things changes them.”

Everyone agreed Park had gotten the name of the theory wrong, but no one knew which one was the right one.

“I’m talking about how you can’t see things in a pure way,” Jones said. “The fact is even when a journalist comes it’s almost impossible for them to actually see us. It’s almost like we are acting in an unnatural state.”

“That’s right. You being around changes things. This means we might not get to the front,” Cory said. “We’re out here, you’re out here. What the hell is everybody else doing? If the Holocaust had happened to the Jews in the time of Facebook, how many people would have sat back and let it happen? There is genocide going on. Why is it so hard to do good?”

“The naïveté,” Jones said, “comes from the belief that everything that happens in the world is happening on a television screen.”

“We are men of action,” Park said. “It hurts.”

Colonel Hamzo came up the stairs with a group of his soldiers and pointed flashlights in our eyes. One of the soldiers walked to the edge of the roof and searched the fields. The beam was thick and bright. Colonel Hamzo slipped his hands over Park’s shoulders. Choni, he said. Something was on the way. Two large armored vehicles on our side of the hills.

“What? Daesh is coming? This is great news,” Park said. “If it has wheels, we can shoot it. We can jack it.”

The colonel gave no commands.

At two in the morning, we were eating meat by a fire in the yard when Ahmed stopped by to announce that the militants were on their way. He wrapped a kaffiyeh around his head and tied a knot in the back so it hung down his neck like a ponytail.

“You look like Geronimo,” Cory said.

“We killed a big boss today,” Ahmed said.

The boss was Abu Alaa al-Afari, and he was second in command to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. They had caught him at the Martyrs Mosque in a village outside Tal Afar. The peshmerga slipped ammunition vests packed tight with magazine rounds over their heads. They retrieved their weapons, and piled into three trucks. The foreign fighters joined them.

Colonel Hamzo removed his vest and put it on me. He handed me an AK-47, took my photo, and retrieved his rifle. Then we left. I rode with Colonel Hamzo and three others in the back of his Land Cruiser. We drove for ten minutes. The grass was deep and the road dark. The foreigners were in the truck ahead of us.

The driver turned on his low beams. Stray dogs loped in and out of the lights. What sounded like a chant broke the silence. The colonel turned up the volume on the radio. It was Kurdish propaganda music, a bolster for death and patriotism. “Peshmerga. Peshmerga. Peshmerga,” the voice said. A video screen lit up the center dashboard, showing images of soldiers eating meat or marching. Colonel Hamzo moved his hands to the music. He lit a cigarette and flicked the ashes at the dogs.

The base was nothing but a single makeshift bunker, a lean-to of sorts fashioned out of sandbags and old blankets. Soldiers crowded beneath a yolk-colored light. The air was cold. Beyond the edge of the base there was nothing but blackness, the abyss of the Islamic State. Park ran off to man a PKM machine gun. Jones handed me a glow stick. “Wave this around if you disappear,” he said. The shelter was rimmed with floodlights and the peshmerga outside stood casually illuminated. One of the trucks attempted to turn around but got stuck. It kicked dust, and the wheels groaned.

Colonel Hamzo walked calmly into the shelter and sat on a cot with his legs crossed. I followed him inside. Jones and Cory sat across from each other. Cory had brought along a PSL Romanian Sniper Rifle and Jones an AK-47 assault rifle. The two sat on the edge of the cots with the gun between their legs and ping-ponged military jargon.

Cory said he had first two and then every other. Jones asked Cory if it was a nine or a six. Cory said it was a one. Jones said let’s crank it six because a six is zero plus five plus four. Jones wished for z-mags. Cory wanted infrared laser. “If we hit the IR-7s on the sevens with laser, we’d go far,” Cory said. Jones guaranteed infrared in the green beam. Cory swapped mag rounds. He said he’d keep one molly if Jones racked it. Jones said look for the red magnesium tag on the rear. Cory said he felt good with that dope, hold low for close or high for far. He’d roll.

So many days without a mission, without fighting. It seemed to have built up a pressure inside them, and we were beginning to see it fissure.

“I can’t wait to get out there,” Jones said. “You are lucky you get to see this.”

Cory clicked a magazine into place and stood up. The peshmerga were all staring open-jawed or laying on their backs smoking. “I feel like I am the center of attention right now,” Cory said.

A moment passed. The colonel spoke with Ahmed. A few soldiers went in and out. “What are we waiting for?” I asked.

“Something to happen,” Cory said.

Colonel Hamzo pressed his hands together. “Let’s have chai,” the Colonel said. I leaned over to Cory who sat to my right. “Why are we drinking tea?”

“Fuck if I know,” he said.

The peshmerga smoked. Cory sat back down and I continued writing. Colonel Hamzo asked if I was done yet. He nodded towards my notebook, and I had the distinct feeling that this was a set up, the whole thing was staged; the foreigners equally towed in.

The colonel put extra sugar in my tea, and then he ordered everyone back into the vehicles, and we returned to the base.

Back in the colonel’s quarters the foreign fighters lounged on the floor and ate plates of fruit. “It’s time to sing,” Colonel Hamzo said. There was an awkward pause: No one volunteered.

“Every night,” Park said. “Not a day gone by we don’t work in Top Gun.” He pulled out his iPhone and nodded his head to “Highway to the Danger Zone.”

“Hey, Boss,” Cory said to the colonel. “I don’t remember you singing.”

Colonel Hamzo shook his head and swatted the air with his hands. No one would sleep until the Americans sang.

“OK,” Park said. “Guys?” He sighed. “Star-Spangled Banner?”

Park unpacked an American flag that he had brought with him to Iraq from Georgia. “Got to get out the flag,” he said. They all sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” but didn’t make it to the end. They didn’t know the words. So they tried a tune from Team America: World Police.

“America,” they sang. “Fuck Yeah!”

The photo of Louis Park originally incorrectly stated that he was at a peshemerga base near Tal Afar.