Embassy - Baghdad

[powdahound76]

You always gotta have an extra emergency stash. No beuno

 

[pmclaine]

Looks like USMC is fielding their new rifles in the embassy compound....

 

[M8541Reaper]

I know he was all about drones. But he was droning the periphery. Mid-level guys out in the middle of nowhere, except Bin Laden. I dont remember any other high level Alibaba, especially in the capital city of any ME country.

True, true. Nice to see they sent a message today. Going to have to restock my booze tomorrow and do a toast.

You always gotta have an extra emergency stash. No b

True. One is none and three is also none when in-laws are in town.

 

[clcustom1911]

haha yea. I burned through my emergency booze because the in-laws were in town, so it’s a dry house

Nah dude, southern AZ.

Unacceptable. Buy more ammo er booze.


AJ tourette's kicked in sorry

 

[clcustom1911]

Looks like USMC is fielding their new rifles in the embassy compound....

View attachment 7215528

Murica

 

[Soulezoo]

American contractors who are killed in action, or even otherwise pass away in duty, are repatriated via Dover AFB in a flag draped coffin and are given the honor guard they deserve. The media doesn’t give a shit about contractor deaths, the American public doesn’t give a shit, but at least the President does.

This is true.
It was my solemn honor to make these repatriations back in the day.

 

[Soulezoo]

...a smell you'll never forget...

Oh my god yes... all those burn barrels along the roads... that was some stank!!!

 

[Redmanss]

This is true.
It was my solemn honor to make these repatriations back in the day.

A reverent thank you to you and your brothers in arms.

 

[Soulezoo]

True, true. Nice to see they sent a message today. Going to have to restock my booze tomorrow and do a toast.



True. One is none and three is also none when in-laws are in town.

You need one of these

 

[clcustom1911]

You need one of theseView attachment 7215560

Damn.

That's some real shit right there.

 

[DuneBoer]

Rant mode engaged...

DoS wouldn't need WPS contractors if staties would quit being a bunch of little bitches and actually do something for themselves for once. Instead, they are the epitome of elitist .gov lovers who instead of standing up for themselves or in other any way taking action, they curl into a little ball and scream for an alpha to come same them from the bad noises, while the next day they will complain the same alpha was too rough with them while moving them to a safe haven and try to get him expelled from country.

Here's what it's like working with DoS: They bitch about locked gates, they bitch about open gates, they bitch about windowless rooms, they bitch about people with guns being visible, they bitch about the car being too hot in July and not being able to roll down the armored window, they bitch about you opening the door to check an ID inside the sally port when they refuse to properly display it, they bitch if you don't stare at their ID for fifteen seconds to properly vet it three times over, they bitch when you don't open the door for them when they arrive on venue, they bitch about you not carrying their bag, they bitch when you shove their face in the floor and cover them with your own body when you're taking fire, they bitch when you make them spill their coffee because you were avoiding a suspected RCIED, they bitch when you cancel their movement because of a credible threat report, they bitch when you close their bar because of a riot going on outside your gates, they bitch when you rat them out to the RSO for being drunk and screaming at your guards, and the list can go on for pages and pages...

Fuck DoS bitches, they are the biggest pussies in the government, the most entitled elitists I've ever come across in my life who are otherwise clueless and over their heads, and one of the best laughs I've ever had was when right out of the gate the Trump administration slashed the fuck out of their budget. Just desserts would be DoD taking the same slashing of budget, starting with a 50% reduction in the officer Corps. I'm glad I don't have to deal with their bullshit any longer.

As for contractor life? I made anywhere from $350-$460/day there, pretty much tax free, so the money was decent. All I had to do for it was live in a 8x20 ft shipping container in Afghanistan for eight years, work 313-335 days a year at 12 hours a day-seven days a week and get 30-52 days of unpaid vacation (contract depending), see my kids for no more than a month a year, get a divorce, thwart a TCN guard force walkout because DoD wanted to cut their pay in half to $1000/mo while also cutting their leave to 21 days off a year, do more flesh pressing and politic playing than a presidential candidate, have an Afghan Colonel put out a hit on me that fell on deaf ears when reported, have another Afghan general execute a hit on me which killed two of my men, have another insider VBIED attack kill six of my men because DoS and DoD thought it disrespectful for us to search ANSF personnel, deal with whatever dumbass US Mil leader who is the latest to come through try to reinvent the wheel so they can lay their name to some half ass planned, quarter ass executed idea and go home with a wholly underserved Bronze Star while I and the rest of the contractors are left to clean up their mess afterwards. All the while, I got to deal with all the previously listed bullshit and buried eight of my men and another dozen severely maimed while being told an actual investigation wasn't rated because no American's were killed or wounded, while really they didn't want to admit or allow it to come to light it was their own policies that were the root cause of the attacks.

Anyone who thinks contractors are coddled, over paid and undeserving, you can suck a fat fucking cock.

I went from an overworked and underpaid contractor to an overpaid and underworked railroader. Any pipe hitters out there looking to do the same move, hit me up, they fucking love our type and spend all day trying to figure out how to spend money to keep you safe instead of DoS's way of trying to figure out how to cut your budget and get you killed.

FWIW
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
These, in the days when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.


Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and the earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

 

[Fig]

I don’t get the fascination with pay for fight. Should we not pay our PROFESSIONAL soldiers so they are unsullied by evil money? Are they Mercs because they draw pay?

It’s a bunch of commie bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with money, and nothing wrong with getting paid a fair hazard premium on your services. Love of money is evil, as is fighting and killing for someone or something you don’t believe in, but soldiering and getting paid for it is the most noble thing there is, because there is no greater love than a man that lays down his life for his friends. The commies can go fuck themselves. Truth.

 

[MarinePMI]

I don’t get the fascination with pay for fight. Should we not pay our PROFESSIONAL soldiers so they are unsullied by evil money? Are they Mercs because they draw pay?

It’s a bunch of commie bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with money, and nothing wrong with getting paid a fair hazard premium on your services. Love of money is evil, as is fighting and killing for someone or something you don’t believe in, but soldiering and getting paid for it is the most noble thing there is, because there is no greater love than a man that lays down his life for his friends. The commies can go fuck themselves. Truth.

When it comes to the government, it's all about the color of money (where it came from, when it expires, who appropriated it).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: DFAR 5000 needs to be scrapped and replaced with something that makes sense in this modern age.

 

[Fig]

I don’t disagree, but defense procurement has been fucked up since the Pax Romana. In every age it’s fucked up. Eisenhower’s DIC warning was just a view from the inside. Anytime there’s a pot of money that big it’s going to go poorly when humans are in charge.

 

[MarinePMI]

I don’t disagree, but defense procurement has been fucked up since the Pax Romana. In every age it’s fucked up. Eisenhower’s DIC warning was just a view from the inside. Anytime there’s a pot of money that big it’s going to go poorly when humans are in charge.

The difference today though, is that most of that money goes to government civilians, who can't be fired, and are literally not held accountable for anything they do (and don't do). If you're e-mail ends in ".gov", you're likely part of the problem (not saying you are the problem, just part of the system that is the problem). People bitch about contractors, but turn a blind eye to amount of fraud, waste and abuse that happens of the .gov side. Even the "for profit" organizations within the government are a fucking joke...look no further than SPAWAR, oh wait, they were proven worthless so they changed their name now, to NIWC. (eyeroll) And the kobuki theater continues...

 

[Redmanss]

FWIW
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
BY A. E. HOUSMAN
These, in the days when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.


Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and the earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

Had to look that one up for the context of "Mercenary". In this case, a popular interpretation of the poem is it was to counter the Kaiser's calling the men of the British Expeditionary Force "mercenaries" because they were a professional military force who received several times the pay as a German conscript in WWI. I'm far from a literary enthusiast and definitely not a scholar of poetry, so I'll take their interpretation instead.

Still, I'll give my opinion on the mercenary vs. security professional debate. First and foremost, none of what I did could be remotely be considered military action in the least. We were security guards, body guards, gate monkeys, or chauffeurs. Yes, we were armed, well armed in some cases as my towers had M240B and/or M249 machine guns in them and every man carried a M4 carbine, complete with happy switches, albeit made by Bushmaster. We wore khaki cargo pants, a khaki top for the guards and varying colored collared polo or button down shirts for supervisors. Basically, it was 5.11 catalog shit, and we were strictly prohibited from wearing anything camouflage or otherwise that could be interpreted we were a soldier in any way. Company and program/facility ID cards had to be displayed prominently at all times.

What we did was provide facility security and secure transportation services in support of our program. I worked on a police training program for my entirety of time, so our "missions" consisted of administrative type mail and airport runs as well as escorting American police mentors to various ANP police headquarters where they would work with Afghan police to guide and improve their practices. Our mentors who were embedded with US military units were permitted only on security movements, could never participate in anything offensive in nature, and at times they came under fire their presence was severely scrutinized if it was in the least bit offensive from the onset.

Nobody who came over there looking to get into a firefight got what they wanted, and they were weeded out quickly if that's what they were after. We had to pass annual psychological evaluations to help ensure we had our heads on straight, as well as supervisors were constantly on the lookout for anyone taking undue risks. Our goal on a daily basis was to never get into a fight, restricting movements when the environment was not permissive for a high likelihood of safe passage, keeping our physical sites as hard targets but good neighbors, and going to great lengths to being respectful to our LN hosts and good friends while at the same time maintaining a "You don't want to fuck with us" posture.

Our Rules for the Use of Force (RUF), certainly not Rules of Engagement, were pretty specific and restricting. We had to identify an imminent and overt threat to engage first, and this very rarely occurred. Instead in 99% of the cases, use of force was in response to an active attack upon us. If someone was seen climbing the perimeter wall but we could not positively ID a weapon or explosive, we could not shoot. Rioters angry about a burned Koran at BAF threw rocks and other objects at our towers, burned an adjacent guard shack to our camp, and we could not respond with force. With the exception of the tens of thousands of rounds I put downrange in training, I fired my weapon once and that was at a wild dog that attacked at me, and I still had to do a full use of force report for it. My guards only fired weapons one time, and that was to suppress PKM fire we were taking during a complex attack on our facility, and was well aimed and ceased once they stopped firing upon us.

In the industry, there were certainly some bad actors out there. We went to great lengths to distance ourselves from that type of behavior, as it is extremely counterproductive to staying safe. There were other high profile engagements that were certainly justified which hit YouTube and LiveLeak, but those were definitely the exception rather than the norm. Security contractors work to one end every day, to win the fight because it is not fought in the first place. We carry and wield firearms to protect those we are charged to keep safe, we train to win fights with directed violence and ferocity until the threat no longer exists, but our goal is no different than any man or woman who carries a firearm to defend themselves and their loved ones: As we prepare for their use while we pray every day they never have to leave the holster.

But back to mercenaries... Two of my men who were severely wounded were Afrikaners, one a paratrooper veteran of Angola and the other a retired J-Berg police officer, and they would be the first to tell anyone they were anything other than a mercenary. They were there to provide for their families, one with a daughter at home who was severely disabled by a drunk driver and needed the medical insurance for the numerous surgeries she required, the other just trying to build enough savings to open his custom concrete business back home in SA. Others were Nepalese, Kenyans, Fijians and Indians who came from severely impoverished areas, many supporting their extended families with their incomes just to keep them fed and clothed to avoid famine and illness. Nobody there was getting rich, nobody there were enjoying what they did, instead patiently tolerating the situations we were each in to provide a better living for our families.

So while I appreciate the solemn response to our losses and sacrifices, and I know you held no malice in using the poem about mercenaries, I unequivocally argue we were anything other than mercs.

Cheers.

 

[DuneBoer]

Had to look that one up for the context of "Mercenary". In this case, a popular interpretation of the poem is it was to counter the Kaiser's calling the men of the British Expeditionary Force "mercenaries" because they were a professional military force who received several times the pay as a German conscript in WWI. I'm far from a literary enthusiast and definitely not a scholar of poetry, so I'll take their interpretation instead.

Still, I'll give my opinion on the mercenary vs. security professional debate. First and foremost, none of what I did could be remotely be considered military action in the least. We were security guards, body guards, gate monkeys, or chauffeurs. Yes, we were armed, well armed in some cases as my towers had M240B and/or M249 machine guns in them and every man carried a M4 carbine, complete with happy switches, albeit made by Bushmaster. We wore khaki cargo pants, a khaki top for the guards and varying colored collared polo or button down shirts for supervisors. Basically, it was 5.11 catalog shit, and we were strictly prohibited from wearing anything camouflage or otherwise that could be interpreted we were a soldier in any way. Company and program/facility ID cards had to be displayed prominently at all times.

What we did was provide facility security and secure transportation services in support of our program. I worked on a police training program for my entirety of time, so our "missions" consisted of administrative type mail and airport runs as well as escorting American police mentors to various ANP police headquarters where they would work with Afghan police to guide and improve their practices. Our mentors who were embedded with US military units were permitted only on security movements, could never participate in anything offensive in nature, and at times they came under fire their presence was severely scrutinized if it was in the least bit offensive from the onset.

Nobody who came over there looking to get into a firefight got what they wanted, and they were weeded out quickly if that's what they were after. We had to pass annual psychological evaluations to help ensure we had our heads on straight, as well as supervisors were constantly on the lookout for anyone taking undue risks. Our goal on a daily basis was to never get into a fight, restricting movements when the environment was not permissive for a high likelihood of safe passage, keeping our physical sites as hard targets but good neighbors, and going to great lengths to being respectful to our LN hosts and good friends while at the same time maintaining a "You don't want to fuck with us" posture.

Our Rules for the Use of Force (RUF), certainly not Rules of Engagement, were pretty specific and restricting. We had to identify an imminent and overt threat to engage first, and this very rarely occurred. Instead in 99% of the cases, use of force was in response to an active attack upon us. If someone was seen climbing the perimeter wall but we could not positively ID a weapon or explosive, we could not shoot. Rioters angry about a burned Koran at BAF threw rocks and other objects at our towers, burned an adjacent guard shack to our camp, and we could not respond with force. With the exception of the tens of thousands of rounds I put downrange in training, I fired my weapon once and that was at a wild dog that attacked at me, and I still had to do a full use of force report for it. My guards only fired weapons one time, and that was to suppress PKM fire we were taking during a complex attack on our facility, and was well aimed and ceased once they stopped firing upon us.

In the industry, there were certainly some bad actors out there. We went to great lengths to distance ourselves from that type of behavior, as it is extremely counterproductive to staying safe. There were other high profile engagements that were certainly justified which hit YouTube and LiveLeak, but those were definitely the exception rather than the norm. Security contractors work to one end every day, to win the fight because it is not fought in the first place. We carry and wield firearms to protect those we are charged to keep safe, we train to win fights with directed violence and ferocity until the threat no longer exists, but our goal is no different than any man or woman who carries a firearm to defend themselves and their loved ones: As we prepare for their use while we pray every day they never have to leave the holster.

But back to mercenaries... Two of my men who were severely wounded were Afrikaners, one a paratrooper veteran of Angola and the other a retired J-Berg police officer, and they would be the first to tell anyone they were anything other than a mercenary. They were there to provide for their families, one with a daughter at home who was severely disabled by a drunk driver and needed the medical insurance for the numerous surgeries she required, the other just trying to build enough savings to open his custom concrete business back home in SA. Others were Nepalese, Kenyans, Fijians and Indians who came from severely impoverished areas, many supporting their extended families with their incomes just to keep them fed and clothed to avoid famine and illness. Nobody there was getting rich, nobody there were enjoying what they did, instead patiently tolerating the situations we were each in to provide a better living for our families.

So while I appreciate the solemn response to our losses and sacrifices, and I know you held no malice in using the poem about mercenaries, I unequivocally argue we were anything other than mercs.

Cheers.

My point with the poem: I meant the term "mercenary" like Housman did. Irononically, to subvert the language of German propaganda about the British Army. They did what they did for their country and got paid. Definitely not mercenaries. My favorite line in the poem is "What God abandoned these defended" Ever had that feeling? I sure have.....Fuck.

 

[Mountainbum]

Not getting into the whole politics of it, i sum up my feeling on this as follows: .......... HEY MAN! NICE SHOT!!!