Black Flag Communications Founding Director Scott Rye has been invested into The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem after being appointed a Member by His Majesty King Charles III in April.
The Order of St John is a working chivalric order and operates ambulance services and provides first responders in 44 countries. The Order also supports the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group, which includes hospitals in East Jerusalem, Gaza and Hebron, clinics in Anabta and Kufor Aqab, as well as mobile clinics, training, teaching and research programs. The hospitals treat patients of all faiths, regardless of their ability to pay.
“I am deeply honored to have been nominated for and appointed to membership in the Order,” Rye said. “Given the current situation on the ground in Israel and Palestine, the work of the Order and the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital has never been more critical or more in need of international support.”
Rye has spent considerable time serving, working and volunteering in the Middle East. His duties as a naval officer took him to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the Persian Gulf, among others, as he served with Navy Central Command/U.S. Fifth Fleet, Multi-National Force-Iraq, U.S. Central Command, and Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Syria, and his volunteer efforts took him to Iraq, Jordan, and Qatar. Rye chaired the American Foundation for Relief & Reconciliation in the Middle East from 2014 through 2018, during which time he arranged the evacuation of staff and family members from Iraq following the fall of Mosul and oversaw a massive humanitarian assistance effort that provided food, clothing, shelter, health care, education and more to tens of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees. Under his leadership, AFRRME constructed a kitchen in a settlement camp in Iraqi Kurdistan serving 7,000 hot meals a day, established a day school for refugee children in Amman, Jordan, built a school for girls in a settlement camp and provided 100% of tuition and fees for all IDP students attending Catholic University in Erbil for their first two years. Since January 2023, Rye has served as the sole U.S. trustee on the board of Mosaic Middle East, a UK-registered charity working across religious, societal and political divides to bring hope, help and healing to the Middle East.
