Peter Kassig of Indiana held hostage by ISIS

CHICAGO (WLS) -- In Syria, ISIS militants executed a British hostage and then named the next person they will behead as young man from Indiana, Peter Kassig.

An ISIS executioner today grabbed Kassig by the scruff of his neck and announced him as the next victim at the end of the video showing the beheading of Alan Henning.

Ten years ago, Kassig was running high school track in central Indiana. He is only 26 years old and a former U.S. Army Ranger, and it isn't even clear when he was kidnapped.

Kassig volunteered two years ago in Lebanon to help treat victims of the Syrian civil war, which included refugees and in some cases rebel fighters.

Kassig grew up in Indianapolis, where he was a high school runner who joined the army and became an elite member of the ranger corps. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 but had to leave because of a medical condition.

He came back home to finish college, but wasn't fulfilled.

"I was going to school with kids who look the same, were the same age as me, but we weren't the same," he told CNN in 2012. "I wanted more of a challenge, a sense of purpose."

Kassig returned to the Middle East and started a humanitarian aid organization that helped wounded Syrians.

Somehow, and sometime in the past few months it seems, Kassig ended up in the hands of ISIS. The State Department verified is his identity on Friday.

"We each get one life and that's it. We get one shot at this and we don't get any do-overs, and for me, it was time to put up or shut up," Kassig told CNN. "The way I saw it, I didn't have a choice. This is what I was put here to do. I guess I am just a hopeless romantic, and I am an idealist, and I believe in hopeless causes."