Most people oppose terrorist groups, religious extremists, and fascism. However, very few people would actually leave everything behind and risk their lives to fight those forces.
For years, a Scottish young man spent his free time protesting fascism and far-right extremists. While it was more than most did to fight radical ideologies, he felt compelled to do more. So in 2016, the then 27-year-old left everything behind to fight on the frontline against ISIS.
Struggling to Get By
After being born and growing up in Dundee, Scotland, Callum Ross struggled to find work in his hometown, which has the highest unemployment rate in all of the United Kingdom. He worked as much as he could as a part-time laborer when jobs were available.
Living On Welfare
Yet, Ross struggled to find full-time employment and was forced to get by on welfare. “People are ruined out here,” Ross told Esquire about his hometown. “You have to shoplift to … live.” According to Ross, he was living on £300 a month in 2016.
No Future
At the time, Ross didn’t have anything to work toward and didn’t think he had anything in his future to be excited about. According to Ross, he wasted years of his life smoking too much weed and letting his friends cover his body with tattoos.
The Plane Ticket
Then in the spring of 2016, Ross decided to upend his life and bought a plane ticket to Iraq. His plan was to join the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that had been fighting to create a state for itself, Rojava, in Northern Syria since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.
The Last Night of His Old Life
“The night before I left,” Ross explained, “I was with all my mates. We ate food, had some beers, got stoned, had a laugh.” Before he boarded a plane to head to Syria, Ross gave a key to his apartment to a friend and asked her to keep just a few sentimental things safe.
No Plans to Return
“I asked her to take some sentimental stuff out of my house that I wanted to keep for if I made it home,” Ross said. “That was my mindset: ‘I’m never coming back here’ … I was scared, but I was so focused on Rojava, in my mind, it was like I was already there.”
The Training Camp
For his journey, Ross took just two pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear, two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, and one book. When he landed in Iraq, Ross was picked up from the airport and driven hours through the mountains. Eventually, he reached a training camp on the outskirts of northern Iraq.
Meeting Other New Volunteers
“That was amazing. Amazing man!” Ross said about the moment he stepped foot into the training camp with fighters from all over the world. “It was such a beautiful place. I remember looking out over everything, drinking chai and just chatting to people from all over the world who were just coming and leaving [Syria].”
Traces of War
According to Ross, he witnessed experienced fighters marching back into the camp. The looks on their faces made Ross fully understand what he was getting himself into. “I remember thinking ‘wow you guys look [bad]’ you know? You could just see the war in them.”
Sneaking Into Syria
“I thought ‘that’s going to be me’. It scared me a little bit. But then I thought ‘oh well, we’re here now,'” Ross said. The very next night, Ross crossed the Tigris River with other YPG fighters to sneak into Syria passed armed patrol boats.
A Crash Course
Over the next four weeks, Ross was put through a crash course to learn the Kurdish Kurmanji language. He was also taught how to shoot a rifle and throw grenades. “[In training] you do a very small amount of shooting guns,” Ross explained.
Basic Training
“I fired nine rounds with a Kalashnikov, three rounds with a Bixi [a BKC gun], three rounds with a Dragunov [a Soviet sniper rifle], and we threw stones instead of grenades to learn. That’s the basic Rojava military education,” Ross said.
Ready For Battle
After his training, Ross was given an AK-47 as well as a new Kurdish name, Rizgar Dêrik. Not long after that, Ross was assigned to fight on the frontline against ISIS with a small unit under the YPG called the International Freedom Battalion, which was made up of mostly foreign volunteers from all over the world.
One Common Enemy
Much of the group of foreigners in the unit were Communists and anarchists. Ross didn’t necessarily agree with all of the ideologies within the unit, but they all had one thing in common. They all hated ISIS and were willing to risk their lives fighting them.
The Reason to Fight
For Ross, his entire reason for traveling thousands of miles and putting his life in danger was to fight ISIS. “I … hate the ISIS ideology, to me it’s the same as Nazism,” Ross said. “One hundred percent that was my motivation for going to Syria—to fight fascism.”
Formative Stories
According to Ross, his dad used to tell him stories when he was a little boy about how his grandfather’s friends and other men from around Europe traveled to Spain to help fight in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco, a military dictator.
Childhood Heroes
As a kid, those fighters were Ross’ heroes. “There’s a long history of Scots going over to fight against Franco,” Callum said. “Even in my city, there’s a [commemorative] plaque with the names of the volunteers who went. To me, growing up, I always heard a lot of stories about them. They’re unsung heroes.”
The Propaganda Videos
When he was older, Ross fought members of the far-right on the streets of Scotland. “[There was] plenty of fist fighting,” Ross said. “Bottles, knives … I’m Scottish.” However, at one point, Ross started seeing YPG propaganda videos being spread on Facebook. Ross couldn’t help but compare the fight against ISIS with the stories of the brave Scottish men traveling to Spain to fight a violent dictator. “I likened the two struggles,” Ross explained. “They’re different wars, but fighting the same ideas.”
Protesting Wasn’t Enough
For three years, Ross researched the YPG and Kurdistan. For the first time in a long time, he felt passionate about something and identified with YPG’s fight as they have become one of the most successful forces against ISIS. And the more he learned about the situation in Syria, the more the protests in Europe seemed meaningless.
Ross’s First Close Call
“I always wanted to go to war, but I’m not gonna go fight for some Queen or fight for the … Tories. I fought for something that makes sense to me,” Ross said. Since joining the fight, Ross has had his share of close calls. One night shortly after being sent to the front line, Ross was nearly killed in ‘the famous night war’ when he was caught in friendly fire after the unit mistakenly thought another YPG unit was ISIS fighters.
The Worst Night
In the months that followed, Ross would regularly sneak behind ISIS lines to lay bombs on the roads. If he had been caught, he would have been captured and likely horrifically executed, yet Ross never hesitated when he was assigned to a mission. According to Ross, the scariest night of war was when jihadists snuck into a deserted village guarded by Ross’ unit. That fight only ended when an American A-10 Warthog fighter jet arrived.
A Reason to Pray
“I just started shooting at ISIS from there,” Ross said. “It was the most intense battle I was involved in. When the sunrise came … the A10 arrived. When that … comes, it’s like a demon. The noise it makes … it’s like Satan has just flown past spitting out death. That was scary,” he added. “I prayed a lot. Just in those moments, I was like ‘god will you … sort me out?'”
Returning Home
After 12 months at war, Ross returned to Scotland. His reason to leave wasn’t the horrors of war, but the new foreign volunteers.”Toward the end I was having to deal with a lot of the other volunteer’s problems,” Ross said. “That got me tired. I hated being with a lot of the other internationals. I’ve got no time for someone who comes to join the sixth year of the Syrian war to complain that things aren’t good. What … were you expecting?”
Returning to Civilian Life
After arriving back in Scotland, Ross was questioned by the police for hours but eventually let go. “I’m now back in the flat I was in the night before I left,” Ross said. “It feels weird. It feels strange … [Fighting in Syria] changed my life. I found purpose, a reason to live … Nothing’s changed here, you know? You can just come back here and slot directly back into what you were doing, which I don’t want to do. I wanna … do something with myself.”
