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Overseas armed security contracts

  • 07-07-2011 3:27am
    #1
    IRISH VEGAS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 58 ✭✭


    Has anyone been on a overseas contracts?, i have some interviews form contactors, Location Middle east good benifits if you got the experince:cool:


Comments

  • #2
    Manic Moran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,647 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    If you really have a desire to go overseas (and if you're in Vegas as your name implies), I'd recommend the military, not a PMC.

    I've had several of my soldiers ask my opinion about going back as an armed contractor. After all, the initial viewpoint is excellent: No long-term commitment, and a stupidly high, six-figure salary while you're over there. As long as everything goes right, you're swimming.

    The concern crops up when things don't go right. If I get into trouble in the middle-East, on the other end of my radio is the entire capability of the US Armed Forces, from strike aircraft to medical evacuation helicopters. If a PMC gets into trouble, who's on the other end of his radio? Does he even have a radio? Just how well trained and disciplined is the rest of your squad anyway? Secondly, if wounded, what is the health coverage like? Servicemen wounded get some pretty decent care, for life, plus disability benefits and the like. Going home is not the end of the story for them. Will a PMC send you to Walter Reid and their experts if you get shot or blown up?

    Like anything else, it's a risk/balance assessment you need to make. If you do your research, decide that the concerns can be appropriately mitigated, and that the money you can make is worth the risk, go ahead, go for it. Personally, though I have considered (and in one case applied for) contractor jobs in the war zones, they've all been rear-echelon things like IED analysis, never leaving the base. The money may not be quite as good, but it's still not bad and it's a hell of a lot less risky.

    NTM


  • #3
    Jaafa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,621 ✭✭✭Jaafa


    Just out interest what kind of qualifications does someone need to work on the ground with a PMC?


  • #4
    47
    Closed Accounts Posts: 138 ✭✭47


    Jaafa wrote: »
    Just out interest what kind of qualifications does someone need to work on the ground with a PMC?

    The company I worked for required all personnel to have at least five years military experience, a BTEC level 3 in close protection operations or equivelant and medical training. Without military experience you are not going go get any armed security work in a hostile environment let alone armed security work in a "stable" environment. The only possible exception would be for police officers.

    The hours are long, facilities are basic at best in some locations and not to mention the threat to your life. I you get abducted in the middle east the chances of you ever being released are slim.

    Some of the work undertaken by private security firms in the middle east is extremely dangerous. Convoy protection being the most dangerous, the amount of casualties that companies offering convoy protection services recieve is insane. The turn over rate in the PMC industry is high for a reason.

    The ridiculously high salary, no long term commitments and the notion of being all "tooled up" bigging it up around Baghdad in an armoured jeep sounds brilliant but its not its very dangerous indeed.


  • #5
    IRISH VEGAS
    Closed Accounts Posts: 58 ✭✭IRISH VEGAS


    Manic Moran wrote: »
    If you really have a desire to go overseas (and if you're in Vegas as your name implies), I'd recommend the military, not a PMC.

    I've had several of my soldiers ask my opinion about going back as an armed contractor. After all, the initial viewpoint is excellent: No long-term commitment, and a stupidly high, six-figure salary while you're over there. As long as everything goes right, you're swimming.

    The concern crops up when things don't go right. If I get into trouble in the middle-East, on the other end of my radio is the entire capability of the US Armed Forces, from strike aircraft to medical evacuation helicopters. If a PMC gets into trouble, who's on the other end of his radio? Does he even have a radio? Just how well trained and disciplined is the rest of your squad anyway? Secondly, if wounded, what is the health coverage like? Servicemen wounded get some pretty decent care, for life, plus disability benefits and the like. Going home is not the end of the story for them. Will a PMC send you to Walter Reid and their experts if you get shot or blown up?

    Like anything else, it's a risk/balance assessment you need to make. If you do your research, decide that the concerns can be appropriately mitigated, and that the money you can make is worth the risk, go ahead, go for it. Personally, though I have considered (and in one case applied for) contractor jobs in the war zones, they've all been rear-echelon things like IED analysis, never leaving the base. The money may not be quite as good, but it's still not bad and it's a hell of a lot less risky.

    NTM
    Not in vegas now done private armed security in vegas, You find it v,hard to find any PMC to have same quailites that you expect from the military in the field, unless you got some good crews that know each other well and everone is on a 6


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