Unfortunately, there are no military honor guards for most contractors. There are no medals for heroism. There are no bugles sounding “Taps.” Rarely do contractors’ deaths get any attention in the press beyond the obituary column. It is a sad fact that these men and women are largely unrecognized for their contributions. Families struck with grief over their father or husband’s death, and unprepared for the cold reality of public opinion surrounding contractors, will experience tremendous pain. These issues need to be discussed with and understood by your family before you sign on for the dangerous work of becoming a war zone contractor.
Orientation and Training
When you arrive at the contracting firm’s headquarters, you will be staying at a nearby hotel. You might walk or be bused to the training facility each morning. Travel, lodging, and meals are covered by the contracting firm. Training is accomplished in groups. Your group members will be more experienced in some subjects than others. A few may have already been to Iraq with another contracting firm. Like most groups, at least one or two people will be storytellers. Their stories will make for interesting evenings, but be careful to not place too much stock in their fables.
Your orientation and training will consist of many components. Each orientation and training segment will vary in length from a few hours to several days. They typically consist of an introduction to the war zone, physical examinations, passports, administrative issues, insurance and banking paperwork, area and cultural awareness, military defensive response training, characteristics of working with the military, security issues, prohibitions, and restrictions.
Before you depart from home, you will get a recommended list of what to bring and what not to bring. You need to leave your camouflage hunting gear at home. You cannot wear anything that might resemble a military uniform. Dressing anything like a soldier will void your Geneva Convention protections and will be cause for termination of your contract. As an exception to this policy, many MPRI contractors do wear desert camouflage uniforms when they are on their training installation in Kuwait or Iraq, but when they leave the base, they are required to change into civilian clothing.
Expect an entire day of getting poked and prodded. Contractor physical examinations are pretty thorough and include a chest x-ray, pulmonary function test, EKG, a blood test, drug screen, vaccinations, vision, and hearing tests. If you test positive for drugs, and quite a few applicants do, there is no more discussion. You will be on the next flight home. You will not have a second chance to come back.
If your prospective job is part of a State Department contract, you will have to complete a ton of paperwork and qualify for a minimum of a “secret” security clearance. Bring your birth certificate and/or other proof of citizenship. Be prepared to furnish dates and locations of every address you have ever lived at, every school you have attended, and every country you have ever visited. You should also have with you the names and addresses of relatives, neighbors, and friends. You will need all of this information to complete the required forms. All U.S. contractors are issued a special contractor identification card. State Department security contractors will be also be issued diplomatic passports.
Cultural-awareness training will lay the foundation for how you conduct yourself when mixing with the local population in the Middle East. This is about how not to be an “ugly American.” For example, do not take pictures of local nationals without their permission. Many Arabs consider the act to be evil. Do not point your finger at anyone. Pointing a finger is considered a threat. Do not put your feet up on furniture. The bottoms of your feet are considered the dirtiest part of your body and are insulting to others. Do not touch or pet a dog. According to Muslim law, dogs are filthy animals. The left hand is traditionally part of the toilet routine, and is considered unclean. If you hand something to an Arab with your left hand, you are insulting him.
On day two or three, you will receive a security briefing. Here you will be exposed to the many ways in which the release of seemingly harmless information can in fact place military operations and people’s lives in great danger. You will also develop an awareness of chance meetings with a person who could be a spy trying to acquire information on you, your team, your operations, or your base. You will be instructed on how to recognize and handle suspicious individuals. Never attempt to determine for yourself how much you should or shouldn’t say. As a general rule, don’t tell anybody you don’t know about anything!
One security firm applicant had this to say about his first week of orientation and training, “Our group was training to be part of the Diplomatic Security Services (DSS). That is, we would be assigned to protect high-level government officials. We initially started with over thirty operators from various military and law enforcement tactical backgrounds. Our experience ranges from military special operations, counterintelligence, and SWAT. Over the past few days, we’ve lost almost a third of our class. Most of the washouts were due to psychological or background deficiencies. This course wasn’t designed to have a high attrition rate. It was designed to have the best qualified candidate for the job. During the training and orientation, we learned that the terrorists have placed a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for capturing a security contractor. Their intent is to have a televised beheading. I don’t foresee that happening to me ...at least not being taken alive.”
Inevitably, contractor applicants raise the question concerning how many civilian contractors have been killed or wounded. The old axiom “statistics don’t lie, but people do” often applies. Many contracting firms are reticent to talk about specific numbers. Also, you may want an answer that encompasses all the company’s casualties, not just U.S. casualties. Remember, these firms hire a lot of foreigners to do the same work they are hiring you to do. Watch carefully how the questions are asked and how they are answered. Few companies are very candid.
Day by day, the seriousness of this new job venture sinks into the applicants. Job applicants become aware of the frequency and severity of contractor casualties. More and more, each of them questions the strength of his or her convictions and motives. Every day, there are fewer applicants present for training. There are few, if any, macho attitudes here. Only a fool is macho. Quitting is a deeply personal decision. Rarely is it discussed at the evening meals. No one is proud to quit, but no quitter is scorned. No one knows for certain who made the best decision.
Depending on your job, your military defensive response training segment will vary in length and composition. Nearly all contractors will receive military-oriented protective posture (MOPP) training. This training prepares a contractor to be able to operate under conditions of a nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) threat environment. In the case of NBC, nuclear refers to any release of radioactive material on the battlefield, such as a radioactive dirty bomb. Applicants are taught about the type of chemical and biological agents that could be used and how to put on, wear, eat, drink, eliminate body fluids, and continue to function wearing a protective mask and suit.
Security contractors will be exposed to considerably more training on small arms, convoy-escort procedures, executive protection, communications, close-quarters combat (CQC), and close-quarters marksmanship (CQM). Most trucking contractors will receive the balance of their military defensive response training when they arrive in Kuwait on their way to Iraq. The drivers will go through the defensive driving course. This is a rather benign name for what amounts to how-to-survive an-ambush training. It consists of subjects such as tactical distances, convoy speeds, night driving, communicating, and driving with a shooter riding shotgun. Some of this training may seem simple enough, but try to imagine what it’s like to be driving at night with explosions on your right and left, hot brass from the shooter’s automatic rifle bouncing all over the cab and down the back of your neck with enemy bullets and rocket-propelled grenades breezing past your windshield.
Living Conditions
Very few contractors live in splendor. For most, the conditions are harsh, bord
ering on brutal by U.S. living standards. Often your bed is a metal cot in a dusty steel building or tent. If you are a truck driver or your job takes you to multiple locations in the country, expect that sleeping accommodations will be on a catch-as-catch-can basis. What you get and who you share space with will change from night to night. Even contractors who routinely bunk out in the same location every day sometimes find themselves sleeping in strange places. It’s not uncommon that a contractor working outside the wire won’t be able to get back to his or her home base at the day’s end. If insurgent activity has developed on the road network between you and your home base, you are going to be headed in a different direction for the night.
Sand fleas will be biting at your legs all night, the drinking water will be almost hot enough to burn your mouth, showers will have long lines, and privacy will be a foreign concept (so will convenience, as you stumble out to the port-a-let in the middle of the night). Breathing is a luxury, as your sinuses will be constantly clogged with sand, and you’ll wake up in the morning feeling like you’ve been inhaling coal dust all night long. It’s one thing to endure these conditions for a week or two, it’s entirely another to live with it for six months to a year. Those contractors who live in hotels or homes in the local communities are at much greater risk of being killed or captured. It’s a tradeoff; take your choice. There are no free passes in a war zone.
A contractor in Iraq talks about the water, “Running water—our running water at home always works! In Baghdad it’s a crapshoot. Along with that the water flow fluctuates. Some days it works and other days you’re SOL. I have no idea where our water source comes from, and I don’t want to know. The water is nonpotable and visually unappealing. One look at the public lakes tells you where the water comes from. In small amounts, it looks clear, but in larger amounts it looks like brewed tea. If you drink it, be prepared to be the pilot of a toilet seat for a few days.” U.S.-produced bottled water is abundant; plan on sticking with that.
As for traffic laws in Iraq—simply put, there aren’t any, at least none that are enforced. For the most part, there aren’t any traffic lights, stop signs, or speed limits. Everyone does their own thing. Cars will cross over the median strip and, in what seems like a game of chicken, will head directly at you. Donkey carts full of propane gas travel interspersed among the vehicles on the road. People and bicycles clog the roads. Sometimes you’ll even encounter a Volkswagen racing alongside you in reverse!
Food
Most civilian contractors in Iraq will eat at military dining facilities called DFACs. They used to be called mess halls, but someone decided that DFAC sounded more appetizing. It’s common practice in the military that when something doesn’t work right, they simply change the name—and presto!—the problem disappears. However, in the case of DFACs in Iraq, the food is great!
Ironically, the dining facilities are managed by contractors too, very often KBR. In fact, KBR serves more than 450,000 meals daily to coalition force personnel. U.S. servicemen and women, contractors, Iraqi employees, Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi police often eat side by side in huge dining facilities with every imaginable cuisine from hamburgers and hot dogs to roast beef, spaghetti, cold sandwiches, and a dozen choices for dessert and liquid refreshments. Everything, that is, except alcohol. Alcohol is strictly forbidden in the Middle East. The food is more digestible if you avoid thinking about the Iraqi soldier who wore a bomb vest into the dining facility and killed twenty-six people during a noon meal.
Not all dining facilities are managed by U.S. food contractors. Some, like several of those at hotels inside the international zone are serviced by contracting companies from any number of other countries. If your home-base dining facility happens, for example, to be run by an East Indian company, you will find a disproportionate number of meals that smell like curry. Sure, they will attempt to Americanize the way they prepare meals, but other than the occasional hot dogs, don’t expect a major departure from their inclination for native cooking.
If your job in Iraq requires travel outside the wire, expect that you’ll be taking along meals ready to eat (MRE). If you are lucky and schmooze the DFAC manager, you might get some cold sandwiches to toss into your cooler. It really doesn’t matter a whole lot because when you are dining outside the wire in sweltering temperatures and watching for insurgents, nothing tastes very good.
R&R
Expect about ten days of rest and recuperation (R&R) about three times a year. This too, will vary based on the company you are with. Most contracting firms will offer a fixed dollar amount to cover the cost of a plane ticket to your R&R destination. This may or may not be sufficient to get all the way back to the United States. Regardless of how much they contribute for air fare, travel time often eats up a lot of the vacation time. In addition, contractors will frequently take advantage of the opportunity to visit another country. Many prefer to meet their spouse and spend their vacation in Europe or at a Middle East resort. If you do go home on R&R and decide not to go back to the war, and some do, your plane fare will be deducted from your final pay.
Carrying Weapons in a War Zone
Most civilians applying for war zone contractor positions think they can carry a firearm. They are wrong. Only special categories of contractors can carry a weapon. Their company must be approved to carry weapons by both the Iraqi Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Coalition Forces Land Component Command. Approvals are normally reserved for security contractors and executive protection services. With the possible exception of a few high-level officials, you cannot take your personal firearm into Iraq. Nor can you possess a firearm while in country. The caveat on the latter restriction: it is not strictly enforced, but it could be.
If you choose to carry a firearm in violation of the restrictions, you could lose your job, be subject to legal recourse, and be promptly removed from the country. Unauthorized use of a weapon might also void your insurance. Of course, this isn’t much of a consideration when a group of insurgents opens fire on you. No one has ever heard of a contractor, when under intense enemy fire say, “Sorry I can’t shoot back because my life insurance could get cancelled.” In some countries you could be imprisoned by the local authorities for carrying an unauthorized firearm. In Iraq, U.S. military commanders have the authority to disarm and arrest you. And they have in fact arrested civilian contractors in some isolated cases.
Companies or individuals wanting to take weapons into a foreign country are required to obtain a license from the U.S. State Department. The licensing process is cumbersome and can often take many months to gain approval. The limitations and updating requirements are a bureaucratic nightmare that is not flexible enough to accommodate the fast pace of changing requirements in Iraq. Consequently, many security contractors have simply opted for a commonly used shortcut. They purchase weapons on the black market in the host country.
In Iraq, pistols, assault rifles, and machine guns are readily available from the corner store. For less than a hundred dollars, you can pick up a Russian-made AK-47 assault rifle and for not much more you can buy a full-fledged machine gun. Even non–security contractors, who are officially prohibited from carrying weapons, frequently pick up a personal sidearm in the thriving arms business of Iraq’s black market. When the contractors leave Iraq, they usually sell their weapons to newly arrived contractors or simply sell their weapons back to the local vendor.
State Department contractors are exempt from many of the restrictions and prohibitions on carrying weapons. In fact, Blackwater and DynCorp contractors working for the U.S. Department of State are armed to the teeth. A DynCorp contractor describes his armament: “Our equipment is state of the art and each operator is issued roughly ten thousand dollars’ worth of gear. Our vehicles are also ‘up to spec.’ We have modern, luxury-type SUVs with bulletproof glass and armored panels. Our humvees are all ‘up-armored’ and outfitted with the latest radio gear. In the ‘Special Ops’ world we would be called ‘Gucci’ or pretty. I guess we are.
“Each operator has equipment that is designed and worn for his own operational needs and capabilities. We wear what works. None of us wear stuff that would be considered ‘Hollywood’; no Rambo knives, peace and love pins, or stuff like that. We select our equipment based on three criteria: it must be reliable, durable, and operator friendly. So we do end up with a lot of ‘Gucci’ stuff that might be called faddish back home, but that’s not the reason the stuff was selected. I guess, if the truth be known, when you put all that equipment on, the testosterone just ekes through your pores.”
Here is a typical list of equipment worn or carried by State Department contractors:
• Level III close-quarters battle (CQB) ballistic helmet with infrared capabilities
• Level IV multiple-hit body armor
• HSG Wasatch special forces modular chest rig
• Colt government M4 rifle with aimpoint red dot reticle
• 14 thirty-round M4 ammo magazines (420 rounds)
• Glock 19, 9mm pistol with three high-capacity mags loaded with Hydra-Shock ammo
• 1 U.S. high-concentrate smoke grenade
• 2 U.S. M67 fragmentation grenades (25-meter kill radius)
• Encrytped squad radio
• Cell phone
Family Support and Communication
For many would-be contractors, the biggest challenge they face is family support. During the training and orientation, reality of the endeavor also begins to sink into the contractor’s family. Second thoughts creep into the minds of the family left behind, be it wives, husbands, girlfriends, or children. While job applicants struggle through orientation with their own fears and doubts, they are often confronted with phone calls from home that resurface questions about their imminent departure. Wives will often experience negative comments about their husbands’ venture from friends and neighbors. Feelings of isolation and abandonment begin to overwhelm some families.
A Bloody Business Page 6