by Isaac Himmelman
Kurdish fighters announced on Monday that Robert Grodt, a 28-year-old American serving as a volunteer medic in the Syrian War, died during an ISIS ambush on the outskirts of Raqqa, Syria. The U.S. State Department also confirmed the death of Grodt, who had joined the Kurdish YPG militia force to fight the Islamic State.
Before joining Kurdish militias to fight ISIS, Grodt was a volunteer medic at the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. It was at the Occupy protests in New York’s Zuccotti Park that Grodt met his wife, Kaylee Dedrick. The pair captured media attention as a budding romance set against the backdrop of the Occupy movement. When they had a child a year later, the media even nicknamed it the “Occubaby.”
In 2016, Grodt left his family in New York to join the Kurdish YPG to fight ISIS, intending to volunteer the same way he had during the Occupy protests.
The post This Former Occupy Wall Street Protester Was Killed Fighting ISIS appeared first on Vocativ.
