The Mercenary’s Cookbook

In a new tell-all by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story, the former Commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq takes his turn finger-pointing over where Iraq went wrong. Considering this Administration’s track record for punishing prescience and promoting loyal incompetence among its ranks, the fact that the three-star general took the fall for Abu Ghraib speaks in his favor. (Because, as we all know, it’s the soldier’s fault a few Bad Apples got “out of hand” — if by Bad Apples you mean, the White House.)

It might surprise you to learn (/snark) Sanchez thinks Rumsfeld might have had something to do with the failures of the first year:

“Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.”

If you think PTSD heals over time, think again. Chuck Keller tells his story, so Iraqi Vets don’t make his mistake:

I finally sought treatment at a veterans center a couple of years ago.  It’s still difficult to admit the problem.  I’ve always known deep inside that I had issues with what I saw and did in Vietnam.  I have learned through my conversations with other vets that Corpsmen and Medics tend to have “special” conflicts and damage because of the unique perspective of a “non-combatant.”

We are, as a rule, “healers.”  The violence and bloodiness of combat goes against the very nature of people who want to stop just those two things.  So, there is the trauma of combat multiplied by the stress of trying to overcome its consequences multiplied by the psychological pressure of wondering if you did enough or if you could have done more or if your training was sufficient for the job you were trying to accomplish.

Trauma is a strange thing. You can be brave, yet have no control over how your subconscious decides to react to trauma. I remember watching a show where one soldier started having flashbacks after seeing some body bags when he walked off the plane and stepped into Kuwait for the first time. Others can go through the worst events imaginable and be relatively functional, and it doesn’t seem to have much parallel to courage or bravery. It’s just an automatic response with different triggers for everyone.

My advice to returning vets:  Seek help.  Take advantage of the VA’s treatment centers.  Don’t be afraid to admit you’re suffering.  Don’t do what I did and let your best years fester away when they could have been so productive. 

It’s good advice.

Okay… what soldier doesn’t march through some Baghdad street, exchanging the evil eye with the locals, and think, “I could paid four times as much working for Dyncorp.” Well, the private sector does have its down side:

AN AMERICAN security guard recruited by DynCorp International to serve at the As Sayliyah base has been “stranded” in Qatar for over a year after he was sacked by his employers in April 2007.

Remember, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal? I’m betting this guy wishes he was stuck in an airport.

What’s worse is this disgruntled (to put it mildly) employee claims it was all a negotiating tactic on the part of Dyncorp:

“[T]hings started to fall apart as I arrived here in October 2006. I was forced to sign an employment contract in which the emoluments were less than what had been promised and agreed in the US.

“One of the major setbacks was the absence of a pension plan which figured prominently in the promises made in the US. There was also a shortfall of about $15,000 in the annual package in the new offer.”
 

According to him, things came to a head when he, along with eleven other contractors, complained to Qatar’s Labour Department. Then Dyncorp refused to pay up, so they fired him and told him to take the next plane home. So he gets an injunction against his deportation so his suit could go forward, and his former employers handed over his passport to the police and reported him as an absconder.

Dyncorp managed to dodge service for three months, and he sat, waiting around in Dyncorp housing for over a year to have his day in court. That is, until this past week when the company tried to have him evicted, which is what prompted him to go to the paper. The American embassy couldn’t help because it was a “civil matter”, which is a clever way of placing PMC’s outside of the law — US laws don’t apply because they are in Qatar, Qatar is dragging its feet about getting involved in a dispute between an American company and American employee, and the US embassy won’t get involved because… I don’t know why.

Dyncorp employees have been pushing on various fronts to find some avenue for compensation or accountability of the Guantanamos of business law. A former sub-conractor testified before Congress that a comrade would not have been killed if the armored  car was not being used to transport prostitutes to Dyncorp hotels. In 2002, two former employees won in court after Dyncorp fired them for blowing the whistle on the trafficing of sex slaves in Bosnia.

I feel safer already:

Some federal air marshals have been denied entry to flights they are assigned to protect when their names matched those on the terrorist no-fly list, and the agency says it’s now taking steps to make sure their agents are allowed to board in the future.

Sweet.

With all that’s going down “Over There”, it’s good to know someone is looking out for the kitties.