A North Carolina mom of three and Army veteran has flown to Iraq and is training with the Kurdish Peshmerga to fight ISIS, according to reports.
Samantha Johnston felt the U.S. wasn’t doing enough to stop ISIS, so the former Army geospatial engineer left her kids with a caregiver and joined the fight. Now, she’s training as part of a Kurdish quick reaction force, conducting daily drills and anticipating an attack by ISIS.
The young mom knew she needed to do more to help.
“These children here who are homeless, orphaned; mothers and sisters have been raped and sold, fathers who have been killed,” Johnston told the Daily Mail. “They are suffering, and I knew that I couldn’t just sit and do nothing. I couldn’t look my children in the eyes and say, ‘I didn’t do anything to help.'”
While the determined mom hasn’t fought directly against ISIS yet, but called the current training period “the calm before the storm,” according to a report on Fox46 Charlotte. ISIS has captured much of Iraq and recently captured over 100 tanks, artillery pieces, and wheeled vehicles after the fall of Ramadi.
To see more of Samantha Johnston, check out the article and photo gallery in the Daily Mail.