Man Fighting ISIS Credits Video Games for His Success

Video games allow us to escape reality to places we will never see. Sometimes this is fantasy islands, other times its war zones. One gamer took his life of gaming to the next level when he moved to Syria to fight ISIS, crediting video games for his survival.

John Duttenhofer traveled to Syria last April to aid the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Raqqa, a city recently liberated from ISIS. Duttenhofer has since returned and told his story to the Daily Mail. According to him, his time playing shooter games gave him enough basic combat skills and an understanding of weapons to have made it through the experience.

Duttenhofer, after reading about the crimes committed by Islamic State, sold his car, began exercising, and purchased combat gear in preparation to travel to Syria in 2015. When ready, he took a plan to Iraqi Kurdistan. There he met up with members of the YPG, which he had contacted previously online.



Here he (and other volunteers) were taught basic Kurdish and undergoing weapons training. After of few weeks, he was sent into the battlefield. Duttenhofer said his experience of playing video games proved invaluable.

"Video games prepared me in a way for knowing strategies and how not to get killed, like how to use cover and not to stand in the open. They weren't something I picked up because I was going out there to fight, but as a kid I played every day after school. I could sit down and put 13 hours in like it was nothing."

Duttenhofer returned to the US on February 12. His final six months were spent in Raqqa alongside a sniper squad. He decided to return home last October when the city was liberated and the life of his battle partner, 24-year-old Jack Holmes from England, was lost.

According to Duttenhofer, the experience hasn't changed him into a "tough guy," but he believes he is wiser from it.