Warlove

By Zinar G

Stories of the war from someone who fought with the YPG against ISIS in northern Syria

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zinar
• Release date: Oct 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533739421

Book preview

'Denn das Schöne ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen, und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht, uns zu zerstören.' 

- R M Rilke, Duino Elegie 1

Clit

––––––––

The run did me in. Double time gents, tight formation, and he and his troop floated down the road while I stomped breathless further and further behind, my glutes and quads stabbing me on any kind of stair for the next two days. His fitness test was doable but he and his guys were so far beyond the minimum 10 minute mile with boots and rifle that I told him it would be unfair of me to stay.

I defaulted to a Kurdish operations group and we hiluxed for hours through the barren rolling landscape until we came to a clutch of abandoned mud hovels. The broken glass, smashed furniture and human shit were cleared out and mats and sleeping pads laid. Someone found a small wood stove in one of the huts and got it going with plastic and chunks of furniture and we crowded around, waiting in the haze for chai.

Three days of idleness, no toilet or latrine, nowhere to wash and little food, indifferently prepared. Maybe these guys took no interest in logistics when they were not in the fight or maybe this was the standard of negligence they brought to the fight in which they were no doubt heroic, possibly suicidal. I had survived such groups before.

I opted out again, this time for devils I knew. Their commander saw some of the things I saw, played computer chess, and had orchestrated the battle for Serakani.

Again in transit, this time by stages, days here and there in abandoned schools and clinics until finally the last stop in Suluc in a spacious villa junked by soldiers. I had a day