When Ed and Lenor went back to Iraq in February 2015, Ed got to meet with the officers and men serving in some of the mobile medical units.

Some of the soldiers asked to take pictures.  Here is one of them.

One officer addressed Ed directly and shared his appreciation and a story of using a medical kit to save a mans life, and the huge difference it made for that man’s family.  Before the medical kits arrived the mobile medical unit was mostly just a place were soldiers were read their last rites.  The core men serving at the mobile medical unit said that the kits were allowing soldiers to make it back from the front lines, and to be saved, which is not only good for those individual soldiers and their families, but also for morale of everyone involved.

If you’d like to donate $25 to provide a soldier with a life saving medical kit please click here.

This post will be more about the who the Peshmerga are, which has motivated me to help in any way that I can. After hearing my fathers first story, I was very interested in learning more about the Peshmerga. In November 2015, I had a great opportunity to interview another responder, Hope, for my paper on the Peshmerga. Hope had been in the Iraq in January of 2014 and then from January 2015-June 2015. I asked her a question about what she experienced to be a cause of unity and identity to the Kurdish people. The following is a quote about her experience of the Peshmerga during that time. “The Peshmerga is one of the most unifying factors that brings everyone together. They [the Kurdish people] love their Peshmerga and it is an honor to be one of them. They are “of the people” because most of them are regular people who left their homes and families and are now fighting for little or no pay in defense of their people. Everywhere you went their would be signs, flags, posters, saying “we are all Peshmerga”. I couldn’t understand most of the words on the songs in the stores or on the radio, but I did know the word Peshmerga and almost every song had something to do with praising the Peshmerga. The Kurdish people take pride in the fact that they have survived as a people even though so many have tried to wipe them out. They also want to be known as a people that keep their word, probably because they have been betrayed by other countries so many times.”

The day before I present my paper, the New York Times ran this article, about how the Peshmerga, along with the US, is fighting ISIS. If you do happen to click the link I’d like to draw attention to the photos of female peshmerga fighters, who happen to also be frontline fighters from that article. Although my fathers accounts are of experiences with male soldiers, the Peshmerga are made up of both men and women.

Obviously my father speaks about the Peshmerga and his experiences in Iraq better than I could ever write here. But since not everyone gets to witness that I am going to make an attempt here in the next few entries.

In September of 2014, Ed went to Mahkmohr, Iraq to visit with the Peshmerga, to deliver care packages, medical kits, and to witness the life saving training class. This is a video highlighting the medical training process which is also on our donation page:

Peshmerga is a Kurdish word meaning “one who faces death”, a very accurate term. During this time the area was considered the front lines of the war against ISIS.  The Kurdish Peshmerga were making a name for themselves in our news in America, and soon became known as the fiercest adversary of ISIS. Unlike the American army, the Peshmerga are mostly comprised of volunteer foot soldiers who face death with minimal training, outdated weapons, and quite often little access to food, water, and medical supplies. So that they have been succeeding in places where other highly trained and well advantaged army’s have failed is even more noteworthy.  When Ed recounts the experience he says immediately he felt dynamic connection with the soldiers, and that he related as a father figure to the men. Ed’s small acts of encouragement where very appreciated. The soldiers spirits were uplifted by “an American who cared enough to go to the front line to provide them with kits to save the lives of their friends”.  Ed also got to meet with some of the generals, who also shared in appreciation for the efforts made by Ed and the other C.R.I. responders. The officers told Ed they felt very isolated and were encouraged by Americans who would come to help them. They asked Ed to lend his voice, and request more support when he returned to America.

These are some pictures Ed took of a medical kit and it’s contents.

One kit is $25. If you’d like to help us send more medical kits to the Peshmerga please visit our donations page or click the link below to donate directly.

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