Don't mention the K word

In 2005, the US Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3ACR) was on a tour of duty in Tal Afar, Iraq. It was led by a brilliant Commanding Officer (CO), then Colonel HR McMaster, who later reached Lieutenant General rank and was President Trump's National Security Advisor.

Colonel McMaster had read Taylor's book, Among the Others: Encounters with the Forgotten Turkmen of Iraq.

The Turkoman are an ethnic group, akin to Turks, and speaking a Turkish language. A large number of Turkomen live in the northern Iraq town of Tal Afar, which is about 480km northwest of Bagdad, the Iraqi capital.

Over 3 million live in Iraq and after the Arabs and Kurds are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq. The majority are Sunni Muslims.

Turkey, naturally, took a protective concern for their kinsmen across the border in Iraq, especially with the Kurds and Sunni Arabs making inroads into the Turkoman enclave of Tal Afar. Some of the local Turkomans were involved in the insurgency against the US, who had been mistakenly portrayed as foreign Islamists.

As Taylor explained:

"The only thing that convinced me to return to Iraq [in 2005] after being held hostage was a personal request from Colonel H.R. McMaster, the US military commander in the city of Talafar. He had read my book about the Turkmen of Iraq, and McMaster wanted to fly me in to brief his soldiers, so they would better understand the local population. He knew it would be difficult for me to revisit 'the scene of the crime' so to speak, but the American military prepared to fly me in by helicopter and provide full protection. As a direct result of this visit, my contacts with the moderate Turkmen leaders in Talafar were able to reach an understanding with McMaster, and a lot of lives were saved in the subsequent combat operations. To sweeten the whole experience, the US unit managed to capture one of the insurgents who had tortured me, and he is now convicted and serving a life sentence in a Baghdad jail."

In 2005 Taylor, Canadian cameraman Stefan Nitoslawski and I had crossed the Turkish border at Silopi by taxi car into Iraq – legally! The border checkpoint is also known as the Gates.

On the "Iraqi" side was a large Kurdish flag, and the border guards in combat fatigues had the Kurdish flag patch on their sleaves. In effect, this was a de-facto Kurdish state in Northern Iraq – - backed by the US. The Kurds were reliable allies for Washington in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

Whilst we waited for our US Army chopper to pick us up and fly to Operating Base, Sykes, just outside of Tal Afar, the HQ of 3 ACR, a Kurdish border official noticed me became suspicious. Because of my olive complexion, he accused me of being a Turkish intelligence operative.

I spent some moments explaining to him I was an Australian journalist of Macedonian parentage, hence the swarthy appearance. He didn't seem convinced. I then started playing with my gold crucifix and necklace. That seemed to do the trick.

Our ride, the US Army Blackhawk helicopter, and escort, an Apache helicopter, arrived at the Gates to pick us up.