You know, much will be said about the sacrifice and good work of the military during the last ten years of war. Much is being said of the loss of lives, both on that day and during the ten years of war, on this ten year anniversary of 9/11. Every bit of that loss and sacrifice deserve the attention of the nation and world…. But in the back of the room, quietly supporting the war effort, quietly being killed or wounded, and quietly serving for the last ten years is the contractor. And in my little corner of the internet, I wanted to make sure that the contractor sacrifice is counted.
So who is this contractor? They are the Sri Lanken who is building the barracks for an Iraqi brigade. He is the Ugandan standing guard at the DFAC or front gate. He is the former Navy SEAL, working in a PSD detail as a contractor for the State Department. She is a health and safety inspector for a camp in northern Afghanistan. He is an Afghan convoy guard transporting fuel to a remote camp. She is an interpreter working with the coalition to help them with their daily patrols in the villages. The contractor is everywhere in this war, and their contribution is certainly significant.
Some of these contractors are prior military, and some are former police officers. But many are civilians who wanted to make a difference. They are the plumbers, the carpenters, the teachers, the cooks, the paramedics, etc. that come from all over the US and the world to give their contribution to the war. I would speculate that well over a million civilian contractors have cycled in and out of the war over the years, but there are no statistics to back this up. Although we do know that our ratio of contractor to the military in the war zones over the years has been about 1 to 1, and sometimes higher. So whatever the military numbers, the contractor service is pretty close. And believe it or not, in Afghanistan there was a historically significant point in the war where there were more contractors than soldiers.
“As of March 2009, there were 68,197 DoD contractors in Afghanistan, compared to 52,300 uniformed personnel. Contractors made up 57% of DoD’s workforce in Afghanistan. This apparently represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DoD in any conflict in the history of the United States.”–CRS report
But what is the contractor sacrifice? Well according to the Department of Labor, there have been 2,752 contractors killed and 71,662 wounded. The number of reporting companies is a staggering 1,831. (from 09/01/2001 to 06/30/2011) Think about those numbers and understand that each of those deaths and injuries are individuals that willfully came to these war zones to serve in their various capacities. Each had families and loved ones that mourned over their deaths. Or they had to deal with the struggle each day with the physical and mental fight that comes with rehabilitation and healing.
I personally think that the death and injury rates are much higher, but because there is no official commission to track all deaths and injuries of contractors, that the DoL statistics are really all we have. Of course there are individuals tracking deaths, but it has been noted that all they really care about is military deaths–with contractor deaths being a burden to count….
There is also another area of contractor sacrifice that gets little attention, and that is the POW’s and MIA’s of the industry. Just recently, James Coker was a Pentagon civilian contractor that was kidnapped, and then later beheaded in Afghanistan. It was barely a blip in the daily news cycle. Or you have those contractors that have been wrongly detained in corrupt prison systems for years, just rotting away.
I have also touched on an area of contractor sacrifice that has not received any attention, and that is mental health. How many have taken their own lives since returning from the war? I do not know, and it is a statistic that I think would match the military’s rates of suicide. (ProPublica touched on it a little)
But with all of this death and suffering, contractors continue to serve and in great numbers. They will continue to serve for as long as it takes, and they will do it quietly and willingly. So I give praise to the military for their sacrifice in this war, but we must also recognize and give praise to the sacrifice and resolve of our contractor force.
Lastly, the main reason why contractors and the military are fighting this war, is the cowardly act of terrorists on 9/11, and the equally cowardly act of groups supporting those terrorists around the world. Hence why we have taken the fight into places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, and other rocks of the planet where the enemy chooses to organize and scheme under. It is our desire for justice and the urge to defend the homeland, that will keep the fires of this war lasting as long as it takes. That desire for justice is what drives all of us, both contractor and soldier, and we will not stop until justice is served and the enemy is no more. –Matt
From left to right, Tim Newman working as a DynCorp contractor in Iraq; the aftermath of the IED explosion that took Newman's leg; Newman after his recovery. (Photos courtesy of Tim Newman)
In April 2004, Reggie Lane was driving a fuel truck in Iraq for a defense contractor when insurgents attacked his convoy with rocket-propelled grenades, causing him numerous injuries. For most of the five years since, Lane, now 60, has spent his days in silence, cared for at the Country Gardens Adult Foster Care in Central Point, Ore. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Malek Hadi was working with the U.S. military police when a homemade bomb detonated beneath his Humvee in September 2006. (Allison V. Smith/For The Los Angeles Times.)
On the one-year anniversary of her husband's suicide, Barb Dill breaks down at her husband's tombstone. Wade Dill, a Marine Corps veteran, took a contractor job in Iraq. Three weeks after he returned home for good, he committed suicide (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / Redding, CA / July 16, 2007).