Iowa soldier returns to Iraq alone to fight ISIS

Ryan O'Leary's parents and girlfriend have told him what he's doing is crazy. So have the FBI and the U.S. State Department.

He understands their point.

But the Iowa soldier returned to Iraq last month, headed to war for the third time. The first two times, he served with the Iowa National Guard, with authority from the U.S. Army. This time, he's volunteering on his own to help train the Kurdish army of northern Iraq to battle the ferocious terrorist group known as ISIS.

"ISIS isn't just a fight for them, it's a fight for all of us," he said. "We need to help them out, and we're not doing it. … The only thing I'm getting out of it is knowing that I'm helping make change in a country that deserves it and for a people that deserve it."

O'Leary, 28, is a National Guard corporal who served in Iraq in 2007-08 and in Afghanistan in 2010-11. In an interview via Skype this week, he explained plans to help train members of the Peshmerga, which is the Kurdish army.

The FBI and the State Department have said what he's doing is legal, but they've urged him to consider the danger. They worry he could be kidnapped, used as a hostage or killed. O'Leary said he feels relatively safe amid his new Kurdish comrades.

Kurdistan is a semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq, whose people sided with Americans in the war that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. The region was relatively stable and prosperous until ISIS began a rampage there last year.

ISIS's brutality has included beheading captives in Iraq and neighboring Syria. He knows his quest could end in death.

"If it happens, at least I died doing something I believed in," he said in an interview last month at his West Des Moines apartment, two days before he left. "It's better than sitting here on the couch watching news feeds of Christians getting killed and Muslims getting killed for no reason."

O'Leary is serving with a force that has proven more effective than the official Iraqi Army, which the U.S. government spent billions of dollars to train and arm. The Iraqi Army abandoned its weapons and fled last month when ISIS fighters stormed the city of Ramadi, which is 250 miles south of where O'Leary landed. The Peshmerga has been praised for standing its ground against the extremists in its region of the country.

Kurdish officials have discouraged foreign fighters from joining the Peshmerga, but some veterans of western forces reportedly have done so anyway. O'Leary said he's seen a few dozen of them, mostly Americans and Brits. Peshmerga units are using the foreigners mainly as instructors, not as direct combat soldiers, he said.

"They're really not wanting to put westerners in the danger zones," he said this week. "I didn't come over here just to kill people. I mainly came over to ensure the Peshmerga were getting the proper training."

He said he's been helping provide some medical services among war refugees, while awaiting security clearance to begin working with recruits on rifle marksmanship, first aid and other basic skills. He said he expects that clearance to come any day. His only compensation has been a cot, food, tea and cigarettes, he said.

FBI has concerns

O'Leary said he made contact with the Peshmerga a few months ago through a Kurdish friend who served as a translator for the Iowa National Guard in Iraq. The former translator introduced him via Facebook with a British veteran who was helping train a Kurdish unit, he said. The British veteran helped him figure out how to link up with the Kurdish army in a town about 200 miles northeast of Baghdad.

American warplanes have dropped bombs on ISIS, but the U.S. has not committed ground forces. O'Leary said he couldn't sit on the sidelines any longer. The Kurds have been stalwart U.S. allies over the decades, but Americans have been inconsistent friends, he said.

After thinking it over for a couple of months, he paid $1,061 for a one-way ticket to Iraq and started packing his duffel bags.

O'Leary said this week that he faced no serious hurdles in traveling to Iraq last month. He said he told the truth when an airport security agent in Chicago asked him about his plans. Their exchange was friendly and lasted just a few minutes, he recalled. The agent, "pretty much said, 'Stay safe and have a good flight.' "

His father expressed mixed feelings about O'Leary's trip. "We support him in what he wants to do," the elder O'Leary said by phone from his home in rural Iowa. "We made it very clear that we really don't agree with him doing this. But we realize the decision is his, and he's chosen to do it."

O'Leary's family has been communicating with him mainly via Facebook. "I'm not sure exactly what he's up to. He says it's hot, dirty and loud there," his father said. "Obviously, there's almost anywhere else in the world we'd rather have him go to. But he just kind of got it in his head that's what he wanted to do."

The Register is not identifying O'Leary's family or specifying where he grew up because of concerns raised by federal officials. The FBI is aware of O'Leary's travels, and an agent told the Register that authorities don't want to see his family endangered by ISIS sympathizers in the U.S.

FBI agent Brian Endrizal said it's not illegal for Americans to travel to Iraq and help the Kurds. But it's also not advisable for people to do what O'Leary apparently is doing, he said. "They could be captured. They could be killed. They could be used as hostages," he said.

Endrizal said his agency would like O'Leary to contact the American embassy and consider returning to the United States. "Our biggest concern is that he comes home safe and soon — but who knows when that's going to be?" the agent said.

Military status in je opardy

O'Leary joined the Iowa National Guard in 2004 and transferred in 2011 to the National Guard in Louisiana, where his then-wife was from. He had hoped to transfer back to the Iowa Guard.

During the interview last month, the television in O'Leary's apartment was silently showing the movie "Three Kings," a George Clooney film in which American soldiers go rogue to find a fortune in stolen gold in Iraq.

O'Leary was wearing a black T-shirt bearing the "Red Bulls" logo of the National Guard's 34th Infantry Division. He's proud to have served with the Iowa Guard in volatile regions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He treasures deployment photos of himself with his buddies. In one picture, he's smiling in front of a blasted wall, where a Taliban shell smashed into U.S. Army barracks in eastern Afghanistan.

But in returning to Iraq last month, he walked away from the U.S. military. He stripped all insignia off his camouflage uniforms before packing them into two green duffel bags. He attached Kurdish patches after he arrived in Iraq. He also brought the sturdy tan boots the U.S. Army issued him for his last trip to the country.

He packed $600 worth of medical supplies, which his Kurdish friend said were needed. The supplies included bandages, tourniquets and packets of "Quik-Clot" powder to stanch bleeding from gunshot wounds. "Hopefully, we won't have to use too much of that," he said.

A military spokesman confirmed that O'Leary is still a part-time member of the Louisiana National Guard. O'Leary said he told some friends of his plans but did not notify his superiors. The next time he's due to participate in training, he'll probably be declared absent without leave, better known as AWOL, he said.

If his unit was actively involved in war, he'd expect to be jailed for taking off. But in this case, he predicts he'll be tossed out of the military. The main effect of that would be loss of benefits, including medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

VA specialists have helped him deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, which he said led him to be sent home early from his Iraq deployment seven years ago. The PTSD is easing, he said, but it still sometimes makes him irritable and sleepless. He worries his experiences in Kurdistan could inflame the condition, and he won't have insurance coverage for treatment once he returns.

MORE: What punishment could AWOL soldier face?

Representatives of the Kurdistan government did not respond to requests for comment. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman sent a statement cautioning against what O'Leary is doing.

"U.S. citizens are warned against all but essential travel to Iraq," the department said. "The U.S. government does not support U.S. citizens traveling to Iraq to fight against ISIS. Although the U.S. government does not support the activities of these individuals, if a U.S. citizen travels to Iraq despite our travel warning, the U.S. government will still work to provide consular services as possible. However, our ability to provide consular services in Iraq is extremely limited."

O'Leary said he doesn't plan to make them try.

He said he'll likely stay there at least a year. He would be willing to come back, he said, if the United States would support the Kurds with serious weapons and American instructors.

"The only way I'd come back home right now would be if the United States and NATO and the other U.N. countries actually started giving aid directly to Kurdistan," he said.

A prior "close shave" in Afghanistan

Ryan O'Leary's non-conformity caught The Des Moines Register's attention in 2011, when he was serving as a machine-gunner with the Iowa National Guard in eastern Afghanistan.

O'Leary had returned from leave with sideburns that were a tad too long. When his commander ordered him to shave, O'Leary obeyed — then didn't stop until he'd shaved every hair on his head, including his eyebrows.

He said he knew the results looked freakish. "But you know what? I don't care," he said.

His buddies warned that his eyebrows would grow back bushy, like an old man's. Four years later, he laughingly admitted they were right. But he doesn't care about that, either.