Now, the 28-year-old Racine, Wis., man is recovering in a hospital in northeastern Syria from a shrapnel wound in his foot, the result of a mortar attack by Islamic State fighters in Jazaa, along the Iraqi border.
Tall with slightly graying hair, Matson conceded that people back home might call him crazy for joining Kurdish forces three weeks ago to help end the Islamic State’s reign of terror.
“I couldn’t just sit and watch Christians being slaughtered anymore,” he said in an interview with USA Today. “I got sick of giving online sympathy. Five minutes of lip service does nothing. These people are fighting for their homes, for everything they have.”
Matson was critical of the United States for being slow to launch air attacks on the Islamic State militants, who have been fighting in Syria for three years and seized large portions of Iraq earlier this year.
“It wasn’t until an American was beheaded did we do anything,” he said of the execution of journalist James Foley in August. “We just let the monster grow and grow.
“For the U.S. government, it’s not about human life. It’s about how they look in the opinion polls,” added Matson, who was wearing a military uniform and a traditional Kurdish black and white scarf across his shoulders.
Matson, who now goes by the name Sadar, served in the U.S. Army as an infantryman from May 2006 until November 2007, attaining the rank of private first class, according to Army Human Resources Command.
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