Soldier for a Summer: One Man's Journey from Dublin to the Frontline of the Libyan Uprising - Tapa blanda

Housam "Sam" Najjair was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Libyan father. In June 2011, Libya was being torn apart by civil war; though he was just thirty-two years old, Sam left Ireland on a one-way ticket to Tunisia, crossing into war-torn Libya, to join the uprising against the dictator Gaddafi. Soldier for a Summer charts his journey—from his arrival into Libya, training in the Western Mountains for twelve weeks before advancing on Tripoli where, on August 20, 2011, Sam and the now famous Tripoli Brigade, a unit of the National Liberation Army of Libya, were the first revolutionaries to enter, and subsequently secure, the city and Martyr Square. From meeting representatives of NATO to covert operatives, arms deals, the death of his close friend and colleague, safe-houses and a captured girl sniper, this is the astounding story of how a young Irish-Libyan revolutionary became a battlefield commander of a unit of the National Liberation Army of Libya. This is an account of the remarkable events in a single season that liberated a country and transformed Housam Najjair.

Sam Najjair worked in restaurants and in the Liberty Market after being expelled from school and, at nineteen, took over a small restaurant in Dublin city before returning to Tripoli for two years. There, he worked for a diamond jeweller and in a travel agency that specialized in desert and mountain trips. He returned to Dublin at the age of twenty-one and worked in construction for several years before his fateful decision to fight against Gaddafi and help in the liberation of Libya.