Capt. Ozcan Cikmaz became a legend for his service as a company commander in 2012 during anti-terror operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party in the southeastern town of Semdinli. Called the “Hero of Semdinli,” the infantry commander was decorated with the rarely awarded Distinguished Bravery and Sacrifice Medal. Where is Cikmaz these days? Not, as one might assume, in a critical post in the Turkish army, but in Silicon Valley. Cikmaz's journey from Turkey to California epitomizes the broader problem the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has of not being able to retain highly qualified personnel.
After his legendary exploits on the Semdinli front, Cikmaz, who graduated as a lieutenant from the Turkish Military Academy in 2002, was transferred to the Infantry School in Istanbul. While there, he took leave to study business at ESCP Europe in Paris, and in 2015, he resigned from the TSK of his own accord to attend school in the United States, at Cornell and Stanford. Today he is in Silicon Valley preparing to launch an app he developed, Hospital on Mobile, to help patients contact physicians and improve physicians' patient management.