Known to his Kurdish comrades as Ciwan Firat, he “made his place among us with his laughter, his sense of humour, and his spirit,” reads a statement issued by the YPG on his death.
MacTaggart was killed during an operation on August 3 to save civilians being held by Islamic State in Manbij, the YPG confirmed.
His parents released a statement on his death. “Jordan admired the Kurds from afar and grew to love them as a people and eventually his comrades in arms. Their cause became his. Without regret or remorse he was in Syria to do his best to help them. He was welcomed and loved in return. He spoke so highly of them and his fellow foreign fighters from all over the globe,” reads the statement published in Colorado media.
“We love him unconditionally. We support him completely and our sincerest wish is that no one turns a blind eye to this ongoing Kurdish revolution. We support this cause and the selfless men and women in the YPG/YPJ.”
This was MacTaggart’s second trip to fight with the YPG in Syria.
In December 2015, back in the US after his first trip to Syria, he spoke with Boulder Weekly about his motivation for joining a war in a country not his own. He said that he had researched the Kurds of Rojava, northern Syria, and found that he held many of the same ideals and beliefs as them. Seeking to get out of the boredom that dominated his life in the US, he chose to join the YPG.
He spoke in a matter of fact manner of the grim reality of war. He described both being welcomed by the Kurds from the moment he arrived and relishing the death of ISIS militants.
Telling the story of one firefight when he was overwhelmed by fear, MacTaggart said, “In that moment, I was actually almost ashamed of myself, how nervous and scared I was. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t hyperventilate, I didn’t breakdown. My only option was to fight. That’s all I had to do.”
