Blackwater
 

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories...7946&ran=29743

BMT

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It will be interesting to see how large this industry grows over the next decade, and how much Uncle Sam relies on them.

So you pay them 20k so you can make them money after your trained lol

Well, at least they are trying to train them and not just sending them out to die in place. Does the price seem high to you guys for an 8 week course? Doesn't really seem all that high to me, of course that would depend on the quality of instruction as well. No way to judge looking in.

I agree with TFM, it will be interesting to watch this all develop.

For those in the Know??
 

Is it the industry standard to have to pay for your own training? Most civilian companies recruit and hire the best available candidates then send them through their new hire training program...at company cost. While the new hire is in training his pay is at a lower rate until graduation. The article said certain guys with the right resume by pass the academy and go right to work....that makes sense. Although I am sure they go through some Blackwater SOP type training. Do any companies in this industry PAY for the employee training and offer the new hire a living wage while in the training program??

NDD....While the training I am sure is comprehensive......20K does sound too steep.

One of the problems is company jumping. Guys will sign on with a company, get the company provided training, then move to another company for a few bucks more. I see this as a way to keep from losing money.
This type of training isn't cheap. Unfortunately in today's world, money is often the only way to get a committment. It wouldn't surprise me if that training money is made up after a reasonable period in bonuses or some such.

Makes sense. I think the market place will eventually have an effect. More start up companies will drive competition thus force companies to offer more attractive new hire packages. Very interesting to see also how the private companies will come to integrate (if at all) with US forces. Especially when a (down range) BN commander sees one of his former company commanders or squad leaders walking around in 5.11 pants and vest. Wonder if personal relationship will have an effect if they all ready have not?

Actually seems on the low side to me. My Experience setting up training with another commercial organization is that 10- 15 days of training for USG non-operators in pistol, carbine, driving and other very basics costs about 1/3 to 1/2 of that 8 week price.

One word of advice, there is "NO" industry standard when it comes to civilian weapons and training in the United States, none, zero. While I agree there is a huge industry, there is none that sets a standard.

For all you know the trainers at Blackwater were former Mall Security Specialists that have great people skills.

Point in case, there was a military channel special where a Texas SWAT Team was attending training at a civilian facility in Texas and they were using this instructors "Black Powder" breaching charge to breach doors. The instructor was an idiot and the SWAT Team was paying big money to be trained by said idiot.

There are no standards.

TS

Blackwater
 

http://www.hamptonroads.com/pilotonline/

More on Blackwater.

BMT

+1. Buyer beware.

Blackwater Better than Most
 

In the discussion of companies that charge their employees for expensive training, the commercial aviation industry comes to mind. It is not uncommon for regional carriers and small freight lines to charge their pilots for their type ratings at FlightSafety Int'l or SimuFlight, courses which can easily run upwards of $20,000. NDD is dead-on in pointing out that this does prevent someone from jumping ship soon after training.

As for running into former comrades downrange, in early '04 we did run into our former company commander, who had been relieved about 6 months earlier and sent home. He was back in Baghdad with Custer Battles. From our limited dealings with THAT company, it would seem that they certainly did not have any kind of training program or standard prior to sending their employees into the Middle East. They were a mess and generally a pain to deal with. That being said, the Blackwater guys were usually very professional, and squared away when compared to most of the other contractors doing business in our area.

TS and NDD...you guys are saying what my instincts were telling me. While I am sure that there are very HIGH caliber people employeed by BW and others...the attraction of the yahoo/stroke job/soldier of fortune wannabe type seems high. Maybe the companies suck up the 20K from those types then bless off on them never intending to send them on a job and save the real jobs for the former SOCOM boys. Just guessing.

Not only does the $20K keep them from jumping ship it weeds out those who do not really have the desire right upfront. When asked to put out that kind of cash you generally ask yourself a few questions. While I am sure a few do slip through the instructors, if they are good ones, will find them and send them packing.

I tend to think that this is more than a little high. Among the people I have talked to in the community Blackwater does not have the best reputation. I have always been advised that if I was going to go into contractor work I should look at other contractors.

SFC W

These guys were passing out recruitment DVDs all over the FOBs in North Iraq. The money starts to look pretty good to a lot of the combat suport e-3s and e-4s who are tired of pulling DFAC gaurd for the thrid time in a week. A least one guy from my unit went to their school to try for a position when he ETSed. I'm waiting to hear how it went.

20K IS high for a course of that nature. Most LE/Military training runs about 1K per week, maybe a bit more if it includes lodging and meals.

I believe that the training course referenced is required for non-SOF personnel seeking employment with BW. They will let you sign a note for the cost of the training and take it out of your pay with them. The old "company store" deal all over again.

If you look at the article carefully, students also have to sign a two-year "no compete" clause, so they cannot work for anyone else for 24 months.

As far as the trainers and instructors go, you will see everything from former SEALs to foreign nationals to "security professionals" who have never served before. Note that very few, if any SF personnel work with them.

I believe that their recruiting video shows (or used to) a wild drive through an urban area of Iraq with them shooting up every vehicle they saw. A real "hearts and minds" campaign for the US.:rolleyes:

Caveat Emptor.

TR

I know a couple of guys that work for them - seem happy, they're still there. You will always be able to find somebody to say something good or bad about any outfit.

Sir, I was thinking that was a British company. Unless there are two videos from two companies out there like that...and then things get really sad.

From the non-PSD contracting side of the world, that is correct. I can think of one huge technology company that hoses its employees on benefits and pay yet people are lining up to work with them. Some folks for that company are awesome, some shouldn't be allowed to use a computer or look at a radio much less maintain them.

Fair enough.

SFC W

NYT Article
 

I know it's almost a full year old, but reading this Blackwater article reminded me of another article handling the same subject matter. It's too long to post, so i've included a link below:

Triple Canopy Article

The instructors I dealt with at Blackwater where solid enough. The Primary was an Aussie SAS dude and one of the AI's was a former 18B from 5th Group. Although, the other AI was an LEO/USMC Reservist I could have buttstroked on multiple occassions.

Is their training worth $20k. Like TR says, the going national rate is $1k a week. Now they do provide lodging and meals, but their DFAC just plain sucks, serving UGR-A's. The same heat and serve shit you eat down range. Now, if they are providing ammo and weapons, I could see how the bill gets up there considering the weapons they do have a capability of training on.

A couple of years ago I read an article about contract companies attempting to keep up with the demands to meet the "numbers" they had promised so to speak. Blackwater was specifically mentioned in the article. Basically the article stated Blackwater was mass producting , not training to standards to meet the demands of the contracts, but trained to a level of meeting quantity. The products produced were not adequately trained therefore many problems were encountered in the field. The article discussed the mass producing and the wealth Blackwater was gaining.

Sitting back here at home and reading this type of information along with the negative press Blackwater was getting at the time really made me think about this company's goals.

As someone stated in an earlier post, the training is more for the non-SOF types. This also make you think there may a lot of wannabes that attemp this venture thinking quick and easy big money.

In the industry, Triple Canopy is of a different league and has different operational expertise than BW.
In regards to the video of contractors shooting up civvies in Iraq that was online, the one that most people talk about is reputed to be AEGIS, which is a large British company under the command of Tim Spicer (look him up, it's "interesting"). However, there are a lot more videos of similar incidents, often less incriminating but certainly demonstrating the standards of the soldiers operating in the majority of the Private Military industry. Blackwater is featured in several of these videos.

These companies are very important not only to the future of the US and its approach to the 'sharp end' of foreign policy, but also ultimately to the successful development of countries like Iraq, Astan, and any other places they get sent.

Right now, the industry is for the most part not the best of influences, as TR asserted- they love what the article terms 'high speed' ops like PSD work... but are useless when it comes to winning hearts and minds and operating within the mandate of the Iraqi authorities.

PMCs also support a wide range of noxious industries in Iraq, including a burgeoning prostitution industry. Some may recall that another PMC, Dyncorp, had employees running slaver/child prostitution networks in Bosnia.

Without careful regulation, this industry could very easily be a negative influence on the situation in the sandbox.

JMO,

Solid

Solid,

When did you go through training?

Or are you merely speculating on these companies differences?

The people on here writing/posting actually know the people that run these companies and the sort of training each has to offer.

Unless you have "first" hand knowledge keep your opinions to yourself. What someone else "said" doesn't cut it here, not unless you're in the "business".

TS

Solid, wind your neck in.

I was talking about this subject to an individual from my unit while we were doing that 3rd day on the gate at Kirkuk.....turns out that he said an uncle of his had bought Blackwater from the original owners. His "uncle" had no military experience as far as I could tell from the ensuing conversation, so who knows if the story was b.s. But when I returned and had gone to the BMW dealership in FayetteNam, I was chatting with the saleman, who went to answer a call (I was just feeling him out prior to purchase) and I was approaced by a gentleman who asked what I did. He asked if I was considering going into the civilian market doing PSD. I mentioned that I had toyed with the idea and he told me that it would be best to stay away from BW simply because they had changed drastically over the years. From what he mentioned, there was a former operator that started the company (keep in mind I do not know the history of said org) and he retired and sold the business. He said that since they have hired just about anyone that has served even a day in the military, regardless of exp. He also said that many of the specops guys that had been with the conpany for years had started to bail because of the risk of being thrown together with folks that were not on their level, so to speak.

A6:

AFAIK, the ownership of BW has not changed since the first year it was started. Eric Prince was the money behind it then, and he still is now. I believe the story stated that too.

I think that the guy at the gate was BSing you.

Why someone would start a discussion about PSDs with a stranger in a car dealership is beyond me.:rolleyes:

The management at BW has told me before that they get thousands of resumes from people looking to cash in, and many of them have zero military experience. I would assume that is what the eight-week course was designed to try and remedy.

TR

Maybe I'm just crazy, but it seems to me like all of the hullaballu about Blackwater and other PMC's is just a repeat of the Executive Outcomes outcry from the early and mid 90's after Sierra Leone and Rwanda. Anybody else feel me on this?
I think that a big portion of the outcry stems from the government feeling threatened by an organization that they can't bully into giving away freedoms. A well regulated militia being neseccary to the security of a free state...

FWIW, I shared the bunkhouse at BlackWater with one of the early contractor classes. I was there for a Glock Armourer and three day pistol class, they were just beginning their train up.

Of the roughly two dozen guys going through the class, all but a handful were real young (21-25yo) with a few years Army infantry or Marines. The two team leaders were pretty squared away. One had been with the 75th in Mogadishu, the other's background I've forgotten. Both had a calm confident demeanor and kept the young guys in line, even after having a few beers.

They were on the range next to us at times, but I couldn't see all that much of what they were doing. They were, as one would expect, a lot more proficient with their M-4s than with the Glock 17s they were using. I saw some sloppy gunhandling and their transitions pretty much sucked. As stated, though, they were just beginning their train up.

The BlackWater instructors who were with them most often, were not terribly impressive. I think BW was having trouble fielding instructors at that time. We had three different instructors in three days of class. Only one was first rate. The others weren't bozos, but weren't in the league of folks like Holschen, Hamilton, and others I've seen who really shone.

HTH

The government is not the problem. Uncle Sugar is perfectly happy to keep using PMCs. The problem is other entities. First there are the paranoid types who see conspiricies in every shadow, the USG is building secret armies to take over the world blah blah blah. Then there are those in the government and the military who do not trust civilian contrators, sometimes with good cause. And then there the PMCs themselves, some of whom are bound and determined to engage in various forms of jackassery as eveidenced by the tapes that were mentioned in other posts.

SFC W

"The Government" is a very large entity and in this case a very broad statement. There are indeed government officials that are very concerned about the use of contractors. And in some cases, we have been our own worse enemy.

What I believe will eventually happen is that the field will be regulated to the point of becoming completely useless.

IMO, we haven't done a very good job of policing ourselves.

+1 to NDD's post. That isn't just for the PSD side either. The technology support side suffers from many of the same problems, only we aren't filming ourselves shooting up non-combatants. Our stupidity isn't as spectacular.

I'm not sure about PSD work, but every resume on the technology side is checked out by the DoD before that person is hired. Sounds great, right? Waivers for everything do exist and resumes can and have been forged. The gov't checks your piece of paper, not all of the facts and the timeline behind it.

If the industry wants to survive in its present form then it needs to police itself. Some companies already do this, others don't.

Roger that TS/NDD, didn't mean to come off so strong. I spent the summer in the employ of one of these firms, and have seen/ dealt with a lot of things that were very impressive, but also a lot of things which wrenched my stomach. The latter fired my post; apologies.

A lot of the high-level firms have come together in Iraq especially to force the USG and IG to start regulating the PMCs out there, effects are slow in the making because there are a lot of individuals out there who are 'below the radar' because the business was not heavily monitored at the start of the war.

Tubbs: Executive Outcomes and their ilk are different organizations from the modern PMC in three ways. First, EO et al. operated on behalf of non-Western govts, fulfilling contracts set out by, for example, African rulers. Second difference is that these guys were often paid in land, diamond mining rights, etc. This produced a nasty little loop, whereby the companies were more or less directly profitting from the land they fought over. Third, these companies had capabilities that BW is only now reaching (batallion strength), including armor and soviet fighter-jets. The majority of contractors these days don't have those kind of capabilities, although as I said, it's a changing world.

Some argue that the best case scenario is that the most reliable firms with the best hiring, firing, and PR practices will push hard for more and more stringent controls on the industry. These controls will hurt the profit lines of other, less 'reliable' companies, and slowly these companies will close. The individiuals working for the closing companies will look for work with the big firms, and the big firms will select the best and leave the rest out. In the end, the industry will be far more consolidated, packed with all the high-capability operators out there, and probably will function with far higher fidelity as a policy tool for the USG.

JMO,

Solid

What may be impressive to the civilian might be considered to be folly by the professional soldier.

These companies operate for one reason, massive profit. While some of the employees might be red blooded Americans the owners see only green. They started as a good idea and quickly grew into worthless empires, worthless as many are corrupt beyond imagination;

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchas...t-with-new.php

US military contractor hit with new lawsuit alleging Iraq fraud
Holly Manges Jones at 11:10 AM ET

[JURIST] A new federal lawsuit has been filed against banned American military contractor Custer Battles [corporate website] and two former Pentagon officials alleging that the defendants tried to bypass a suspension order against the contractor by setting up shell companies to continue gaining rebuilding contracts in Iraq. The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by AP, names former acting Navy Secretary Hansford T. Johnson [official profile] and former acting Navy Undersecretary Douglas Combs as co-conspirators in the scheme. The suit was brought by two whistleblowers, including Robert Isakson, a former employee of the contractor who won [JURIST report] a previous suit against Custer Battles in March based on allegations that the firm overcharged the US Coalition Provisional Authority [official website] by nearly $50 million.



This is one of many that is being looked at for fraud..... and IMO fraud in a time of war should equal a very long prison sentence.

Team Sergeant

In my opinion BW (AKA: "The Army of Darkness") is a good place to work. I've never seen any yaayhoo instructors. The company is a for profit company, and its important to rememeber that. Um, don't go to the $20K school. At least I wouldn't. Before a guy goes somewhere, there is a train up and a certification, which they pay you to do. Sometimes a guy is kept on a paid retainer, at home while he waits to go abroad.

This stuff is sometimes more about who you know than what you know. That is where the danger lies. If you want to work (and have the prerequisite background) , attend a cheaper class (there are several to choose from), make some contacts, talk to people. If they like you, they'll call you.

Don't dabble in the female employees, they will send you packin quicker than you know what. Don't run your mouth about what you used to be or do, or how you did it at this place or that. They don't care and you aren't going to impress them. Don't be a loud mouth. Don't start ordering people around. But it is a corporate world, if you have those backstabbing skills you might get to use them, you would be wise to watch out for these kinds of people.


TS,
IIRC, wasn't custer battles owned by a westpoint grad? I think a company called Danubia Global bought the remnants of them.

We're happy you like BlackWater.

As a professional soldier I see them as just what they are, contactors, not an Army by any means. Take away the money and they will fade away very quickly. I would rather not have someone beside me that fights only for a profit motive.

I've not heard anything good concerning Blackwater, their training, management or personnel.

Team Sergeant

NDD and Commo:
Why is a heavily regulated military contractor industry necessarily an ineffective industry?

Thanks,

Solid

Name one efficient heavily regulated industry.

Financial services.

But I agree that regulation usually is a bad thing.