By Stephen Mansfield

Though the United States finds itself fighting against a new type of terrorist force in the Middle East — the "Islamic State" that weds an ancient religious vision to modern social media, a global agenda and a new level of ferocity — some Americans are responding in a very traditional way. They're leaving their country behind and picking up a gun to fight ISIL.

They are not waiting for their government to send them but are joining the Kurdish troops standing against ISIL because the fight seems to be universal, the kind of fight in which Americans are destined to play a role.

Flying Tigers on the Tigris

Among them is Jeremy Woodard, a veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq and who left his job as a security guard in Meridian, Miss., to join the Kurdish peshmerga in Syria. His reason? ISIL is killing innocent people. It must be stopped.

There is also Ohio's Brian Wilson and Wisconsin Army veteran Jordan Matson. Matson left his bank job to serve with the peshmerga in Syria. He has already been wounded, says he has killed a member of ISIL and is using Facebook to recruit more like him.

More Americans are likely to go the way of Woodard, Wilson and Matson. Veterans are discussing the idea of joining the Kurds. A plan to build a brigade of anti-ISIL warriors with a crowdfunding idea is making its way around the Internet.

Canadians are following the same path.

As novel as such schemes might appear, this trend has deep roots in U.S. history. Individual Americans have long felt the freedom to battle for worthy causes in foreign lands, usually well before their government chose to engage.

Before the United States entered World War I in 1917, there were already American pilots serving in France in the Lafayette Escadrille, named for the French general who joined the American revolution. The success of these fliers against German pilots became the stuff of films as recently as the 2006 movie Flyboys.

During the 1930s Spanish Civil War, Americans formed an Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight Hitler's allies. These "Lincolns" included future World War II heroes, novelists, composers and Hollywood luminaries. Their sacrifices were chronicled by a young reporter in Spain at the time — Ernest Hemingway.

Americans were also fighting Japanese imperialism before the U.S. entered World War II. Among them were the Flying Tigers, veterans of the Army Air Corps, Navy and Marine air services who flew for China during the 1930s. Their stunning achievements have been celebrated in numerous books and films, including the 1942 John Wayne film Flying Tigers.

Right makes might

What draws such fighters is a virtuous cause. In the Kurds, Americans have found brothers.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, the people have recovered from decades of Saddam Hussein's oppression. The brutal dictator dropped sarin and mustard gas on entire cities. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed, and nearly a million were displaced.

The Kurds began rebuilding only after Western jets provided the protection of a "no-fly" zone in the early 1990s. Now, five-star hotels and gleaming skyscrapers stand where Saddam's victims had once lain. So magnificent was this Kurdish resurrection that in recent years, The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler have included Kurdistan on "must see" vacation lists.

Then came ISIL. With the Iraqi army abandoning the field, U.S. and European governments dithered then launched a weak response. The Kurds stand with too little support against a force that beheads Christians and sells captured women as sex slaves for $10 each.

Faced with these horrors, some Americans, unwilling to wait for their government to act decisively, have decided to stand with the Kurds. Like those of earlier generations who fought for cherished causes abroad, these modern warriors will be both celebrated as heroes and vilified as soldiers of fortune, praised for their courage and derided for their blood lust and folly.

It might serve us well to remember, though, that Americans going abroad to fight tyranny as private citizens has usually come just before their government joined the fight for the same noble reasons: to fight German imperialism in World War I and fascism in World War II. In each case, the private warriors' dedication to a noble cause led their fellow Americans to commit as well.

For the Iraqi Kurds, this war could be their version of an American Revolution — a war for the birth of a nation and against crushing tyranny. If this is true, then surely some American Lafayettes should be standing at their side.

Stephen Mansfield is author of The Miracle of the Kurds.

USA Today