Feral Jundi

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Cool Stuff: Three DoD Contractors Receive The Medal Of Valor For Actions In Afghanistan

From right to left; Brandon R. Seabolt, William T. Nix, and Michael A. Dunne are applauded after each receiving the Medal of Valor during a ceremony in the Hall of Heroes in the Pentagon, Aug. 14, 2018. (U.S. DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Everett Allen/released)

A big hat tip to Adam who sent me this story. Two of the contractors  were involved in a counter-attack against the Taliban as the enemy tried to breach Camp Integrity with a car bomb back in August of 2015. They basically plugged the gap with return fire, and stopped the suicide assaulters from getting in. Unfortunately, one Green Beret was killed in this incident, but the actions of these contractors saved the camp from even more carnage.

The other contractor was awarded the MoV for actions on another incident in Helmand, December of 2015. It sounded like quite the fight, and his team overcame.

All of these men are former special operations. The contract they were on was under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency as counter-IED specialists or “irregular warfare analysts”. The companies they were working for at the time were CACI-The Wexford Group International and General Dynamics.

The Medal of Valor award has only been awarded to 14 civilians since it’s creation. It is a reminder to the public that contractors have definitely contributed in this war. –Matt

 

Civilian Contractors Receive Medal of Valor for Actions in Afghanistan
Aug. 15, 2018

Three retired soldiers were honored at the Pentagon yesterday for exceptional gallantry in action against an armed enemy while serving in Afghanistan as civilian contractors.

Retired Army Master Sgt. William Timothy Nix, retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael Anthony Dunne and retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Brandon Ray Seabolt received the Medal of Valor, the Defense Department’s highest civilian award for valor.

Nix was working as a civilian contractor at a coalition base in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 7, 2015, when he heard the massive boom of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

“I just grabbed a weapon and ran out,” Nix said.

Insurgents had breached the entrance at Camp Integrity, launching the deadly attack with a vehicle-borne IED and then using direct fire, hand grenades and suicide vests.

Nix and Dunne, a fellow contractor, rushed to the fight, teaming up with military personnel to defend the camp, suppress the enemy and evacuate the wounded.

“[The insurgents] blew the whole front of the camp. The gate came off. It collapsed the guard tower out there,” Dunne said, recalling that a suicide vest exploded 30 feet away from him. He thought he would die, he said, but he kept fighting.

Nix was serving as an irregular warfare analyst for the NATO Special Operations Component Command Afghanistan in support of the Resolute Support mission. Dunne was an operations intelligence integrator there.

Fighting was intense and the situation was chaotic, they recalled. Army 1st Sgt. Peter “Drew” McKenna Jr., who was leading the charge against the terrorists, was killed, as were eight Afghan contractors.

Their citations laud their heroism for exposing themselves to direct enemy fire, hand grenades, suicide vests, and other explosives to suppress insurgents who had breached the camp. Their actions undoubtedly saved countless lives at great risk to their own lives, their citations read.

Bravery During Attack in Helmand

Seabolt received the Medal of Valor for his actions in response to an attack near Helmand on Dec. 17, 2015. He had spent 22 years in the Army and was serving as a civilian contractor and counter-IED expert with the Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Agency.

(more…)

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Cool Stuff: BOLO Taxi Shirt

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Iraq — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 4:26 PM

Very Cool! If you have ever done work in Iraq, you would recognized the all too familiar orange and white Iraqi taxi cab on this t-shirt graphic. Check it out. -Matt

This shirt is made by harvesting the finest hairs off the fairest Princesses of the lands and mending it into the silkiest of shirts, or like 4.5oz 100% Ring Spun Cotton so It’s like sexy soft but not too thin so it won’t cling to your winter body like that pie did. It’s ok. Pie is delicious. No one’s judging you. Well maybe Steve is but no one likes him anyway.

Made in the USA.

Buy the shirt here.

 

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Cool Stuff: John Stossel Discusses The Good Of Private Military Companies

This is an excellent little piece by John Stossel. He is a Libertarian and brings forth some interesting points of view in regards to private industry vs government. He has a book that delves further into his ideas.

Some of the examples brought up in this video, would be familiar to anyone that has read this blog. They talked about the Flying Tigers, Somali Pirates and the MARSEC response (with mention of The Somali Project), privateering and the Letter of Marque, as well as early American colonists and their use of private security.

I would have also added some more uses of contractors that had positive results. Executive Outcomes in Angola and Sierra Leone, STTEP in Nigeria, and David Stirling’s PMSC that fought in Yemen to name a few.

It is great to finally see some alternative points of view when talking about this industry and I recommend watching this. –Matt

 

The Flying Tigers.

 

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Cool Stuff: A Russian Contractor Gives The Low Down On His Industry

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Matt @ 8:34 AM

After posting my deal on Russia’s PMSC market, I got some interesting feedback from the readership. Specifically, I got a great message on Facebook from a Russian security contractor whom has been working in his industry since 2005. He was kind enough to send me his input about the state of the Russian PMSC market and his opinion on the various players in that market. And as you can see below with his post, the western media tends to put a slant on things. lol

On this blog, I try to cover the international security contracting scene and it can be very difficult to get a good read on the various markets out there. I am an American, and have worked for American companies overseas and that is it. So the market in China or Russia or wherever is not my area of expertise. So like everyone else, I have to count on the available open source information (in english) and the feedback from my readership (which are mostly western). Hopefully this blog can attract the experts in those markets, and get their help on getting the story right. Or at least let them give their side of the story, which is something I try to do for all of the posts here.

With that said, here it is. Also, on a side note, I have never met this individual or worked with them, so I cannot vouch for them personally. Out of respect for the author’s wishes, I have not listed their name here. Enjoy. –Matt

 

Slavonic_Corps_5

Members of the Slavonic Corps in Syria.

 

First of all, I’ve been reading your website and FB for ages. One of the top spots on a web to read about PMSC and all the things related. Thanks a lot for all the effort you put in!

Just recently saw your post on Russian PMSC. With all due respect and understanding that Russian mercs are exotic beasts for your audience, sometimes we get a lot of laughs reading BS about us. ))

I’ve been doing PMSC since 2005 with Russian companies. I’m Russian. V’been in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan and Central Asia. I know what I’m talking about.

Russian PMSC market simply doesn’t exist. RSB Group that you mention is not very big, though they try hard and do some nice online marketing. The only real and good professional team made of Russian mercs today is Moran Security, based in St.Petersburg, and the only cool thing about them is that they really do a lot of cheap marsec jobs in Indian ocean.

And that’s all. All the Russian real business PMSC-market consists of about 50 people and most of them have a dual citizenship (including US, UK, NZ and etc) and we don’t visit Russia for years.

“Grey area” Russian geopolitics and all the blah-blah-blah is for journos.

In Iraq for example Russian oil companies prefer to sign contracts with British PMSC, not Russian PMSC, and thus they justify huge budgets on security. Half of the money they sip off for security fog is nicely landing in Malta and California villas for top-management of Lukoil.

In Iraq in 2009-2011 we’ve done few security jobs for local warlords and Kurds, but not too much of serious staff. Our peak activity was in 2005 when we were securing regular truck convoys going from Turkey to Basra in the south.

In Central Asia small Russian proto-PMSC were simply slaughtered by islamists and in-prisoned by official local intelligence services.

In Syria the infamous Slavonic Corps was a joke. In Russia we are having a lot of giggles reading the western overstated mass-media reports on its “mighty force of 200 fighters”. It’s a joke. Divide by ten. )))

In Afghanistan we had only a couple of small jobs securing convoys very close to the northern border.

UN approached us for a few gigs in Iraq but it didn’t materialized.

As to Ukraine – it has nothing to do with Russian PMSC. All the fighters from Russian side who go to Donbass to fight are tightly controlled by FSB, have FSB-controlled training camps close to the border and they have nothing to do with PMSC, business or market issues. It’s a Russian version of patriotic ideological madness and Russian version of state-controlled ISIS.

We had a few small contracts guarding Russian mineral companies in Africa, but that was on a minor scale as well. Nothing to be proud about.

So for the last 10 years we have no real Russian PMSCs succeeding in international market and all the Russian mercs apart from those 50 people from RSB and Moran Groups today are trying to join some western security companies with very little success.

There is no reason to exaggerate Russian PMSCs presence anywhere as they simply do not exist as business units. But it’s a lot of fun to tickle western audience with fairytales about exotic Russian mercs roaming Middle East and Africa. )))

Once again, thanks a lot for your blogging and info-sharing.

All the best and huge regards, FJ!

Monday, July 6, 2015

Books: Composite Warfare, By Eeben Barlow

Right on! This is the highly anticipated book written by Eeben Barlow about his thoughts on how to conduct warfare on the African continent. Be sure to check out his blog post about the book over at his site, because he certainly will be answering some questions about it there.

As for an actual shipping date for the book, that is still to be determined and the publisher will have more on that I am sure. The date below says September 19 for the published date, so perhaps in September some time? But you can pre-order now and definitely get in line. Check it out. –Matt

Edit: 09/18/2016 – The book is now for sale and shipping at 30 South Publishers. You can buy the book here.

Website for STTEP is here. (Eeben’s company)

 

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Composite Warfare: The Conduct of Successful Ground Forces Operations in Africa
By Eeben Barlow
Price: $49.95
Product Description
As a continent, Africa presents her armies with a vast, dynamic and multidimensional operating environment. It has numerous complex and diverse ethnic, religious, cultural and tribal interests and loyalties, along with many multifaceted threat-drivers coupled to varied and infrastructure-poor terrain plus vast climatic variations. The continent is, furthermore, characterized by numerous half-won conflicts and wars fought by incorrectly structured, inadequately trained and ill-equipped armies. For many reasons, these forces have difficulty adapting to the complex, demanding and rapidly changing environments they do battle in. Similarly, the armies have difficulty in decisively defeating the various threats they face. Many of these problems stem from the fact that numerous modern-day African armies are merely clones of the armies established by their once-colonial masters, their Cold War allies or their new international allies. Many of the principles and tactics, techniques and procedures they were – and still are – being taught relate to fighting in Europe and not in Africa. Some of these concepts are not even relevant to Africa.

This book is intended as a guide and textbook for African soldiers and scholars who wish to understand the development of hostilities, strategy, operational design, doctrine and tactics. It also illustrates the importance of nonpartisanship and the mission and role of the armed forces. Officers, NCOs and their subordinates need to, furthermore, understand their role in defending and protecting the government and the people they serve. They additionally need to know how to successfully accomplish their numerous missions with aggression, audacity, boldness, speed and surprise. The book provides the reader with valuable information relating to conventional and unconventional maneuver. It also discusses how African armies can, with structured and balanced forces, achieve strategic, operational and tactical success. It covers the role of government along with operations related to war, operations other than war and intelligence operations and how these operations, operating in a coordinated and unified manner, can secure and strengthen a government. ## Composite Warfare draws on the author’s experiences and lessons in Central, Southern, East, West and North Africa where he has served numerous African governments as a politico-military strategist, division commander, division adviser, battalion commander and special operations commander.

Product Details
• Amazon Sales Rank: #437301 in Books
• Published on: 2015-09-19
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .79″ h x 6.14″ w x 9.21″ l, 2.15 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages
Buy the book here.

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