It is 2016 and videographer River Rainbow O’Mahoney Hagg flies alone to Iraq to document on film the story of the brave foreign volunteers defending their northern Syrian homeland against ISIS. His account of what happened there spills over onto the page in his book, “WHERE IS SER (The Brave Lion), a memoir that goes where no camera lens could go: deep into the disturbing psyche of war.

The story begins at an Iraqi prison where Hagg is being released under FBI escort and the ominous glare of a cruel warden named Major Serwan. When an agent warns, “Keep walking and don’t look back. We’re not out of here until you clear the front gates,” it hints at the horror of everything that came before. As an American, the author acknowledges his privilege and resulting inner turmoil. He is not only escaping torture but the grueling anticipation of torture and, perhaps worst of all, the knowledge of what is happening to those men still trapped inside those prison walls. This is just a foreshadowing of the pervasive evil the author experiences as he encounters man’s inhumanity to man in vivid, living color. The faint of heart may wish to read no further, although Hagg’s compelling storytelling makes it difficult to stop. Heading into a war zone to film the chaos takes courage, but volunteering as a combat medic in such a conflict requires rare prowess – a quality likely born of years of school-yard bullying. As it happens, the author is an artist of realism whose medium is grit. His matter-of-fact style does not attempt to temper one speck of tension as he participates in desperate rescues on the frontlines, nor does it whitewash the visuals of hideously wounded and maimed fighters and civilians. Descriptions of dying or dead children – whether pawns on the battlefield or innocent victims of the violence – are gut-wrenching and especially poignant as viewed from the perspective of an author who is also a father.

Even in such a hellish environment, life’s beauty still manages to soothe amid the savagery. When the author finds peace sitting with his comrades on a starry night by a fire eating scrambled eggs, the moment offers brief respite to anguished readers, as well. But perhaps the most meaningful takeaway of this gripping book is the ripping away of any notion that every person must have some decency lurking within. Hagg’s story puts that theory soundly to rest by showing pure evil exists in the form of the monsters who show no compunction about carrying out the atrocities of war. The story of how one man aligned with the good guys on the battlefield could be considered a clarion call for all concerned people to work together to return such monsters to the closet.

In WHERE IS SER (The Brave Lion), author River Rainbow O’Mahoney Hagg delivers a haunting, spell-binding account of his experiences as a documentary filmmaker and U.S. Navy veteran who joins up with the Kurdish militia as a combat medic during the bloody Iraqi-Syrian civil war.

~Libby Wiersema for IndieReader