fetishmaster

Matthew VanDyke is one of my favorite stories to come out of the global conflict scene. Was he a CIA contractor? Some kind of rogue adventurer? A mercenary? I think the truth is considerably more interesting. This is a little three-minute documentary about who the man actually is. VanDyke was a Baltimore kid with a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown who initially imagined a career in intelligence, then did something considerably stranger: he spent years traveling through North Africa and the Middle East by motorcycle, filming the experience and building friendships along the way. When the Libyan revolution erupted in 2011, some of those friends were caught in it. VanDyke returned, this time specifically to fight against Muammar Gaddafi. Six days after arriving, he was captured during a reconnaissance mission and disappeared into the Libyan prison system. He spent roughly six months in captivity, much of it in solitary confinement at Abu Salim prison. When rebels broke the prison open, he had an obvious opportunity to go home. He picked up a rifle and went back to the war. After Libya, VanDyke turned increasingly toward filmmaking. He went into Syria during the civil war, worked around rebel forces in Aleppo and produced Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution. He knew journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff; after ISIS murdered both men, the war became personal again. VanDyke subsequently founded Sons of Liberty International, a nonprofit security organization that supplied free military training and advice to local forces fighting ISIS. In Iraq, the group helped train the Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units, including an entire battalion. That is why I find him more interesting than the conspiracy theories. You do not need a secret CIA contract to explain Matthew VanDyke. The documented story is already bizarre enough: graduate student, motorcycle traveler, filmmaker, Libyan revolutionary, prisoner of Gaddafi, Syrian documentarian and eventually the founder of a nonprofit military-training organization fighting ISIS. Some people spend their lives trying to get away from wars. Matthew VanDyke developed a remarkable habit of finding the next one. @Matt_VanDyke