How Mercenaries Actually Work | Authorized Account | Insider

[00:00] My name is Barry Rice. I'm a former soldier for  the New Zealand Special Air Service. The last 3 0   years, I've been a mercenary and bodyguard  all over the world. This is everything I'm   authorized to tell you. Everyone has  a negative connotation of mercenaries,  

[00:14] right? They all think they're a bunch of wild  geese, killers, and go out there and do that.   And it's not. They're generally there supporting  an agency. And so there's always going to be some   part of an entity, a government or an agency  who will use them for nefarious purposes.

[00:34] The word mercenary is is an old term now. We're  now called security contractors. Basically,   somebody who works for a foreign government or a  foreign company for money. The the value system  

[00:46] or what they believe in and the ethics doesn't  come into it. In late 2003, I went to Baghdad and   this started my mercenary work. Yeah. I mean, the  only thing that I was really focused on was the  

[00:58] fact that I was going to be earning some decent  money. The main principle of close protection   and and military contracting work when you're  looking after somebody is to avoid conflict.   If you're running around shooting up everybody  every day, then you're doing your job completely  

[01:14] wrong. Close protection is to allow the client  to do his job unhindered. We were tasked with   escorting clients to go to the ministries around  the different ministries, electoral ministry,  

[01:27] the oil ministry, talking to the different peoples  to try and pick up Iraq again, get it back on its   feet. Back in those days, 2003, the early part  of 2004, we were thought accepted by the locals,   okay? They they knew we were there to help.  That didn't change until maybe about sort of  

[01:43] two months, 3 months later on on the ground. And  then then things started to go ugly. If we had a   task that we had to do is say take a client to  a meeting in town, you couldn't afford things   like punctures. You couldn't afford breakdowns.  If you had like a Suburban or the Trailblazer,  

[01:58] which had a trunk that could lift up, we'd have a  driver, one guy in the front, two guys in on each   side, and a tail gun. He'd be facing the back  and he normally had a belt fed machine gun or   something quite powerful. So, he would always  be facing back. So if anyone tried to approach  

[02:13] you from the rear, you had enough firepower  to to keep them away. And everybody was given   arcs of responsibilities. So everybody was up  to speed as to what was going on the entire time   that it was happening. Then when you get to  the venue, if your sniper is going to go to  

[02:27] the roof because you always try to carry someone  who could do overwatch, always remembering that   your your mission is to bring back the client.  When we started off with Blackwater and there   were no armored vehicles coming into the country,  everyone had ordered them, but it took a long time  

[02:42] for them to come in. When we did start getting  better vehicles, we had the fully armored Nissan   flatbed trucks that we had. The the disadvantage  of that for us is that you can't shoot out of them   because you can't wind the windows down. The  advantage of soft skin vehicles is that you  

[02:57] not a problem if you need to. So, probably one of  the most common areas where anybody over there at   the time would run into was on Irish, Route Irish.  It was about a six mile stretch of road. You know,  

[03:15] you were you were constricted. You had a side  of the highway going to the airport. You had a   side of the highway coming back from the airport.  So, you couldn't really deviate from that road.   they were to try and attack the military and along  that road with IEDs, improvised exposed device,  

[03:30] strapped to this to the safety barriers or  or car bombs or whatever. So they you know   it got to be a bit of a shooting gallery. The  local insurgents as it were saw Blackwater as   as another extension of the US government. So you  always on the lookout if the traffic was bad and  

[03:46] sometimes you had to be a little bit aggressive  to get people out of the way so you could get   through and get your client out of there.  And we'd say sorry later. What was initially   a safe-ish stretch of six mile highway became  perhaps the most deadliest road in the world.

[04:06] January, February, beginning of March in in Iraq  of 2004, things are still relatively quite sort   of peaceful. But that all changed on the 31st.  So our guys, you know, they were tasked to go  

[04:18] and do a job. They had to go through or around  Fallujah to get to the base that they needed to   get to. However, they the team leader that they  had stopped and asked the local Iraqi police what  

[04:30] was the best way of getting there. And as they  left, there was only two softskinned vehicles   with two people in each vehicle. The three flatbed  trucks in in between. A very lovely soft target   was coming through and of course they set up an  ambush. We saw that. Okay. So, I was I was in the  

[04:47] team house. And I was with a couple of the other  guys there. TV was going and we could see this   this vehicle burning and it looked very familiar  to us. You know, panned around and we saw bodies,  

[05:01] you know, inside the vehicle being burned. They're  being beaten by beaten by the locals and all that   sort of carrying on. And then we realized it was  our guys. Okay. And it was really it was really a   stop moment and you could kind of feel the change  in history, if you know what I mean. For those of  

[05:17] us who are on the ground, that this was now more  than just helping them rebuild, you know, their   country. This was now our war as well. The, you  know the most disturbing thing about it for for me  

[05:30] was that the insurgents, or the guys who attacked  our boys, they they got them in ambush. They they   killed them. They took their weapons, but it was  what the locals were doing. It was the locals that   were beating them up. After the boys got killed in  Fallujah, the Marines and the US military had went  

[05:47] in there for a second time and basically flattened  Fallujah. And that one incident was history   changing. You know, that one incident caused the  death and destruction of thousands of people.

[06:09] So the R.O.E. or rules of engagement are what  we are guided to and what we're told to do and   how we are to act. Okay, generally like for the  military, you aren't allowed to shoot at somebody   until you can identify a weapon or they're  trying to shoot at you. Pretty limiting. Okay,  

[06:23] but you want to try and win hearts and minds.  You just don't want to go around, you know,   killing everybody. However, for us, we didn't have  such restrictions. If we thought that we needed  

[06:35] to engage somebody, that we were technically  allowed to. The Bush administration at the   time were making all sorts of rules that had never  been done before. That did not mean at all that we   would go around just shooting at someone because  we felt like it. However, if we did, legally,  

[06:53] we were we were cleared to be able to do that.  And there were guys in some companies, you know,   would be running cars off the road, forcing them  to crash, shooting a lot more into the bonnets.   And you're a real kind of human being if you do  that. And even if you tried that in the military,  

[07:08] then you know, your friends would quite  rightly either tell on you or put a bullet   in the back of your head. In my teams, I made  sure none of that ever happened. And if there   were people who were going out there in order  to try and get a head count or a body count,  

[07:22] it was quite quickly that they would be  either taken care of or moved out. We did   fire for sure. We did, but we had to watch out  for different target indicators. Okay? And if   they failed these different target indicators,  then we could perhaps consider them to be a bit  

[07:36] more anti-us and we would have to act accordingly.  The biggest thing was never to wait too long and   then you find that you're on the receiving end of  something that was, that you could have avoided.

[07:53] Blackwater Commercial there was a whole...they had  to equip a lot of people in in a short period of   time. So what the company did was they bought  hundreds of guns just from wherever they could   find them. And they when we came in we had them  placed all over the front yard of our team house.  

[08:09] The gun is a big misconception about close  protection. Guns don't make the job. It's about   using your brain, using your observation skills,  and getting out of there or understanding and  

[08:23] reading the situation. And part of when you're  buying second, third hand, 20 year old guns,   whatever the age they may be, is you got to make  sure that they work. So myself and about three   other guys were given the task of stripping,  assembling, oiling up, and testing these guns.  

[08:40] Also, you had to make sure that anything that you  bought from the street hadn't been booby trapped   in a way that if you were to use it, it would blow  up in your hands and kill the operator. And all   those guns that we had were all of the AK variant.  And you'll find most conflicts, they all use the  

[08:58] AK. Those magazines are all prevalent. those parts  were all prevent. If you use more exotic guns like   the M4s or the HKs, they're harder to find the  pieces. And if you run out of bullets on in a   firefight, you just can't go and pick up some that  are on the ground. You have to grab the whole gun.  

[09:12] One thing I was sort of very impressed with,  but sort of like very sort of I'd say jealous   and giggled about, was the amount of gear that my  American colleagues brought in. I mean, these guys  

[09:24] had 5'11 trousers, shirts, hats, you know, vests.  But the thing was when we got the AK-47s and vests   that were seven sizes too big for us, none of  that stuff was any good for them. You know,  

[09:38] the one thing that I think was an advantage  coming from where I came from in New Zealand,   was that our military was, sure, we were  equipped as best as we could, but we could   also make do with what we didn't have. So a lot  of guys struggled who had all this Gucci kit,  

[09:55] but didn't have anything to put it on to, right?  And they couldn't really adjust to to the basics   of what we actually ended up having on the ground.  When we finally were able to get body armor, we'd   have body armor, which was a must, and we'd have  a vest. I had a I carried an MP5, Heckler & Koch  

[10:11] MP5, which is a small 9mm submachine gun, sort  of the Rolls-Royce standard of submachine guns   back in the day. And the reason I carried this  was because inside a vehicle, it was very short  

[10:24] and compact and you were close enough where you  could put rounds down. Now, you're not going to   snipe anybody while you're driving in a vehicle.  You want to put enough rounds down hopefully to  

[10:36] distract them from shooting back at you. Also,  I had four other guys within the vehicle who   had AK-47s and that was they were big enough.  In fact, we even had a bigger weapon than that   and we had a belt fed machine gun in the trunk.  So there were plenty of highpowered firepower  

[10:50] that we needed. Also I had an an RPK or an RPD.  I taken the bipod off which was a long barrel   AK-47 and I carried a an M72 rocket launcher. You  would also carry if we had them white grenades or  

[11:06] flashbangs and depended on your job within the  team dictated what you carry. And what I brought   into my teams after seeing a video of someone  being kidnapped, was that we would put a piece of  

[11:20] red electrical tape around one of the magazines.  And we carried three magazines for our pistol. And   if we got into the firefight and we were bogged  down that badly that we ended up our last magazine   had red tape on the end was to well...the  reason to do that was not to be captured  

[11:35] and star in our own decapitation video that our  families would see for the rest of their lives. So the hierarchy that we were under while we were  there was the owner and his subordinates in back  

[11:55] in the US, and then you'd have your contract  managers and your project managers and then   as being in the military, you have to have your  chain of command and things go up and down in  

[12:08] order to be cleared and whatever. However, like  a special forces unit, the people on the ground   who are running their teams like I was with my  guys and and the guys that I was looking after   with other teams, we are given quite a loose  reign. We are able to make decisions that we think  

[12:25] are going to get the job done or are going to  achieve the goal. I briefed before we went on any   mission. I briefed when we got back. We trained  every week. We cleaned our weapons on a certain  

[12:37] day every week. Then we would relax, we would have  beers, we'd smoke. However, with that, you know,   we also had within our company teams and different  teams on different contracts that didn't train,  

[12:50] they didn't brief, they didn't take the job as  seriously and they paid the price. They worked as   a bunch of individuals and they lost lives. I was  fortunate that I never lost any one of my clients.  

[13:06] Not any one of my boys. And when we did have to  work to get out of a situation that could have   been deadly, we worked very very efficiently and  very very cohesively. And at the beginning stages,  

[13:18] we could fire people if we felt like they weren't  up to scratch. But as months and years went on,   it became harder and harder. And you're starting  to get guys who weren't of military background.  

[13:30] You'd get like former police. You would get  former security guards. We had these two guys   were f---ing fat. You know, there's no other word  for it. You know, they came back to the team house   and then I got a call from from the team house  manager and she says, "I've got these two guys  

[13:46] who are going to join your team." And I looked  at them and I just sort of laughed and there's   no f---ing way. You know these guys are big. And  I just said, "No, this is not going to work."

[14:01] The reason I signed up back in 2003 initially  was because... which is the same reason for a lot   of soldiers or ex-soldiers when they get out, is  that we have all these skills that are not really  

[14:14] appreciated or monetarily valued sort of  worth in civilian street. We've got very   high qualifications and high skills. When the  opportunity came around to get paid for it in  

[14:28] a conflict war situation, yeah, we jumped  at the chance. The paycheck was was very   encouraging. It was the carrot that was very  encouraging to get over there and do. However,   once on the ground, it was like, "Yeah, you are  working for every dollar." I was paid the same as  

[14:43] the guys as everybody else which was basically  a standard salary across the whole company,   you know, being in the ground. Believe me, coming  from New Zealand, $600 a day back then, you know,  

[14:56] what more money did I want? I mean, that was just  being greedy, you know. There was a insurance   policy for harm like I think it was DBA. You know,  that was all part of the being over there. Yeah,  

[15:09] I mean, every security company had generally  ended up buying or renting a villa inside   the IZ. And the houses in Iraq are generally  pretty big. What we had was a was a really nice  

[15:24] one, two, three, story villa. We had a  front yard out it with two date trees   and we used to sit out in the front each  night and pull up our plastic tables and   have a few beers. Each team had a had a room.  Me and my boys, we had one room, bunk beds,  

[15:39] and we made it as as as comfortable as possible.  We had a offices, briefing room, kitchen,   TV room. When you come from the military, you're  used to having not a lot of anything. All right?   And you make the best of what you do have and  you make it comfortable and you make it home. And  

[15:54] this is probably aa point of contention with the  military because we could drink and they couldn't,   you know. And that would that would piss  them off a bit as well. They're on a dry   contract. We were allowed to drink. And we  did, you know. We went ugly early, you know,  

[16:12] we we drank like there was no tomorrow. And cuz we  had a day to recover kind of thing or, you know,   I mean...every weekend there would be a party,  and some of them big and some of them not so big,   and some we went to and some we didn't.  Our rotations were three months on, one  

[16:26] month off. Which was perfect sort of timing really  because after three months you're pretty cooked. We were sort of meant to work side by side  with the military. Okay. But the military  

[16:42] at the end of the day were in charge.  We'd see them all the time, you know,   checkpoints, convoys, and whatever else. However,  it became pretty apparent pretty soon that  

[16:55] they had a bit of a lower regard for us. We got  paid a lot more than they did. We were all former   military like they were. They were still in the  military. They were still under the the sort of   the reigns of what they could and couldn't do. We  could go home at any time we wanted. We had great  

[17:10] rotations. We had a great salary. They were stuck  there. They had to fulfill their contracts. And it   became apparent that we were facing quite a lot of  animosity towards them. They'd deliberately send   us around different roads from their checkpoints.  They wouldn't, you know, open gates for us or they  

[17:27] would just basically leave us waiting out, you  know, making our jobs a lot harder than it had   to be. And we ran into that a lot. Particularly  if they saw a convoy or whatever stopped on the   side of the road. We had to ask permission to get  past them, which is fair enough because we were  

[17:42] driving around same sort of civilian vehicles as  the insurgency, right? And you got a lot of sort   of young members in the military who don't really  want to be there. You know, they see a civilian   car roaring past and guys dressed in civilian  clothing. They don't know just from a first  

[17:55] glance if it's an insurgent type, you know, or a  contractor. They have no idea. So we came up with   identification. We'd wave. We had flags we'd make.  We'd wait till we got you know a thumbs up to be  

[18:09] able to get past them. At night you could expect  a lot more sort of hostility because it was dark.   They couldn't really see who we were. Our vehicles  were beat up and dirty. So you know you just had   to be a lot more careful. We were coming back into  the CPA one time coming through checkpoint or gate  

[18:26] 11, checkpoint one. And so we were driving up and  sure enough, you know, we were waiting for it,   you start seeing "ping ping ping" on the side  of the road. You know, okay, they're shooting   at us. All right, so that means stop. And so  we'd stop, we'd put up our flag. We'd yell out,  

[18:40] we'd wave. I got out. I put my hands out just  like you see in on TV with the cops. And then   I got out and I took my weapon off, put it in.  I made sure I did nothing aggressive or nothing,  

[18:53] you know, speedy, fast. Because you don't know  how old this, you know, little prick on the other   end of a 50 cal is down there, who's scared  enough to shoot at you. Took off all my gear,   put it in the vehicle, spun around nice and  slowly, and then try just tried to encourage  

[19:08] them that we were friendlies and we we wanted to  come in. Ping, ping, ping. You know, here we go,   guys. We're getting shot at again. And I'm pissed  off at this stage because this has happened more   than more than three or four times. So, I get out  and I yell up to the towers, you know, and I said,  

[19:22] "Who the f--- is shooting at us?" And this this  senior senior guy comes out and he goes, "Oh,   with them. I'd had enough. And it wasn't just just  me and and my teams. It was almost everybody has  

[19:36] got stories of being shot at by the military  by these a-holes up in the towers, you know. Muqtada al-Sadr, he had a military force called  the Mahdi Army. They were doing what they thought  

[19:52] they believed in order to protect, you know,  Baghdad, Iraq, against from the the invaders.   They decided at that time, that they  were going to try and take over Najaf,   which is a holy city to them. And we had  a CPA office down there. The American guy  

[20:08] in charge as a civilian was protected by a  Blackwater team. So the boys were down there   looking after him. There was a contingent of  Marines with them. So our guys basically fought  

[20:20] them off. We got as much you know, as many  sort of guns and ammunition and everything,   that they needed to resupply with. And it was  going to be taken to Najaf to help them out in  

[20:33] the battle. We were going to drive our team cuz  I'd been there before but it was deemed to be, you   know, too many checkpoints on the way. We would  have been ambushed and probably would never have   made it. However, so we got permission to use the  company helicopters and those guys loaded up the  

[20:49] company helicopters and they they did a fantastic  job. Very brave guys and fantastic guys, you know.   Picked up injured Marines, brought them back, and  they did runs and shuttle runs every so often.  

[21:01] They provided enough ammunition and support for  the boys to be able to protect the CPA until as   such time as the Mahdi Army backed off. Then the  aftermath of that, because even back then, some  

[21:15] guys would take photos in social media. It sort  of blurred the lines of why civilian contractors   were doing the job that the military are meant to  do. A lot of people in DC didn't like that. Okay.  

[21:29] You know why have all this military then if you  can use civilians who can do the job. Yeah. But   the thing is the military is a lot cheaper as far  as salaries and blah blah blah. And everyone has   a negative connotation of mercenaries, right?  and they played on the negative connotations of  

[21:43] that and they tried to slander the boys for the  job that they did which I believe would not have   been as successful if they had not been there. No,  I think security contracting is a necessary job.   They all think they're a bunch of, you know, wild  geese killers and go out there and do that. And  

[21:59] it's not. I mean, mercenaries have been around for  thousands of years, you know. So, it's it's just   bolstering and helping out a military who may be  too thinned on the ground to be able to do their   job. It's not like we're out there doing it all  on our own or they're doing it all on their own.  

[22:14] They're generally there supporting an agency.  It should be used where possible correctly and   I think Iraq was was a very good experiment as  to where it could be used properly. And I think   it touched a little bit close to the bone in some  cases. Like I mentioned with Najaf, that civilian  

[22:30] contractors, former military people of a very high  standard, can do the job that the military can. We were doing another contract. We  had to go to a meeting in Tikrit,  

[22:46] which is about maybe I think two hours or so sort  of north-ish of of Baghdad. But when we came back   this one bridge in particular which was very  infamous for IED attacks. They had hit somebody  

[23:01] who was at the meeting. So we were forced to stop  on the side of the road. It was about maybe four   vehicles I think at the time. And as long as we  stayed in the vehicles, we were fine. We were  

[23:13] hidden. The thing we dreaded the most appeared,  you know, happened. The client wanted to go to   the washroom. Normally we would pee in a bottle,  so we didn't have to get out, but we couldn't   really ask him to to do that. So, we let him out  after we came up with a plan. And the plan was for  

[23:27] just him and that vehicle security to get out and  that worked pretty well. He went in, he got in,   he got out. Then all of a sudden we had one dick  in the back vehicle and it was a guy who was a  

[23:39] problem child. He wanted to get out for a piss as  well. Despite being told not to, he just did. Soon   as he did that, we had no choice but to bust all  around sort of security on him and everybody else.  

[23:52] And as soon as we did that, of course, we exposed  ourselves. I started getting this feeling that we   okay, there were eyes on us and the people were  coming around to give us a go. So I prepared for   it by asking the guys the closest to the outside  of the road, get in a linear fashion and move  

[24:07] down into an overgrown date plantation. There was  lots of high grass that they could sit down there   and not be seen while those of us up on the road  could keep an eye out. And if nothing happened,  

[24:22] fantastic. We could just wait till it was time  to go and then leave. But what did happen was   one of the guys on the ground noticed some  movement and sure enough they identified a   weapon. They identified guys creeping up on them.  It was getting pretty close to us having to leave  

[24:38] at that stage. So I decided to incorporate what  basically called the like a mad minute. I told   everybody on the ground on the count of three,  let off a burst in that general direction. So 3,  

[24:50] 2, 1, boom. Everything kicked up. Everyone s--t  their pants who was in the vehicles and they all   tried to get out of there. Then we sent out a  clearing patrol where a couple of guys went out   to go and have a look. And sure enough there were  signs of weapons, there were signs of blood. So I  

[25:06] was pretty happy with the decision that I had made  and deduced that what we did was right. It saved   us from being attacked and that's what you're all  about. So we just got back in and left the scene.

[25:23] So when I first went over I mean the only thing  that I was really focused on was the fact that I   was going to be earning some decent money. I was  going over there to fulfill a job as we were told,   get them back on their feet and rebuild. As the  years went on, I felt a degree of sympathy with  

[25:39] with the Iraqi people. And the sort of sense of,  you know, you've been shafted. You've been lied   to, you know. And that became more and more  apparent not only to myself, but to a lot   of the guys as this went on, as the years went  on, that this was never about rebuilding. This  

[25:55] was all about land grab, resource grab, and the  premise of going was was a complete lie. And they   say that we were there to fight the terrorists  and you know the insurgents. And then you know,  

[26:07] when you boil it all down you know you could quite  fairly say that we were the terrorists and we   were the the insurgents because we were in their  country. They formed guerrilla groups and fought   against an invading occupying force. When you see  these politicians who were all for it, you know,  

[26:24] "let's go over there and invade" even though it  was so obvious that Saddam had nothing to do with   with 9/11 or anything like this. And they've now  since changed their tune and everybody will want   to try and get on the the right side of history  and erase their support for an illegal invasion.  

[26:42] That's quite sickening. The people who are the  real mercenaries are the ones who are wearing   suits, the ones who are sending people out.  The politicians, the weapons manufacturers,   the donors to the politicians. Those who will  benefit without getting their hands dirty,  

[27:00] profiteering from the death and destruction  of another of another country and that's how   politics works particularly here in in the US. I'd  left the company when the Nisour Square incident  

[27:13] happened in 2007. I think that situation was the  perfect storm of anything that could go wrong   going wrong. So what had happened was our state  department contract were going out to do some  

[27:27] you know escorting. There was always one one major  circle called Nisour circle or Nisour square where   you were bound to always get contacted. Okay,  everybody knew that that was a very dangerous   area. So what happens — and I wasn't there but  this is just from reading about it and studying  

[27:42] about it — they went through that circle. They  believed they were contacted. They got into a   firefight and in the process civilians got  killed. That was a perfect opportunity for   the Iraqi governments and anybody anti- security  contracting and anybody anti-lack order to just  

[28:00] dump on us. And of course, everyone thinks, oh,  you know, bunch of murdering pricks, you know,   they got what they deserve when they went went to  jail. However, when you when you're on the ground,   you know, things aren't as cut  as dry, you know, simple as that.

[28:19] So after Blackwater I went I was living in Jordan.  So I did a did a bit of work around the region   Beirut, Syria, Egypt, but then I went back  into Iraq but with other companies and  

[28:37] worked up in Kurdistan, which was nowhere near as  intense as the central and southern part of Iraq.   We were doing a lot of sort of like just walking  around the countryside looking after people doing  

[28:50] seismic survey and stuff like this. But my  drinking at that stage had reached a point   where it was now becoming a hindrance to me doing  the job properly. So I was also at a point where  

[29:02] I had to get out of the country because in  my head, you know, I was going to die if I   stayed any longer because of my mental my mental  instability. So I sort of realized that and then  

[29:15] I left there. So I was in Iraq for a total of  seven years. I then did sort of close combat,   close protection in places like South Sudan,  Mali, West Africa, all around. Wherever there  

[29:27] was a conflict, I was able to find work. So I was  taking up whatever contracts would come along.   A couple of the contracts that I did in  in Africa were training contracts training  

[29:40] presidential guards how to do close protection.  How to...and everything that that was around   doing close protection. And to a certain degree in  preparation for perhaps coups or hostile takeovers  

[29:58] because they're so intertribal. [Producer] I know  there's a coup attempt slightly after you were in   South Sudan. [Barrie] The f--- you talking  about? Oh yeah. [Producer] How do you feel   about the morality of some of the other stuff that  you've taken on? [Barrie] I've never turned down  

[30:12] a contract because of what I think would be too  dangerous. But I have turned down many contracts   actually. One because a runs across one of my  golfing days sort of I'm playing golf, so, no,   I don't want to. B, it doesn't pay enough  for what I'm expected to do. And C, and I  

[30:28] won't tell you which one, but it goes against  my moral compass as to what I was expected to   do. [Producer] You don't want to talk about that?  [Barrie] No, I don't want to talk about that. Now,   maybe as a younger person, I would have  accepted it. When I was desperate for money,  

[30:42] but now that I'm an older person, not so desperate  for money, what they would have asked me to do is   something that I wouldn't wouldn't morally be able  to do. No. No. Looking back, it doesn't worry me.   I had to do what I had to do in order to be  where I am today, you know, and I suppose the  

[30:59] only the only time I have any real issues about  what I've seen done or be or where I've been is   Iraq really. And I think that was more because of  the the from what I saw the damage that was done.

[31:18] As you see and do things, or you particularly  see things, like in Iraq for example, you can't   erase them from your memories.Or you can't erase  them from your mind. My my particular situation,   it wasn't anything to do with conflict at all.  Anything I did conflict wise, I have absolutely  

[31:34] no problems with and I'll sleep like a baby. But  this one incident not long after we got there,   there was a bombed big pile of rubbish, big pile  of concrete. But there was this boy who used to  

[31:46] come out at night and we'd look at him and would  try and give him food, but he would scamper back   into the rubble. And he lived in the rubble. And  we came back one evening and I said to the Iraqi  

[31:58] guard, well, I asked Iraqi guard and I said —  he spoke English — I said, "Who's this kid?"   and you know why is he always going in and out of  this bombed out car park? He said, "no it's not a   car park." He said, "that used to be an apartment  block and it got hit in the initial stages of the  

[32:15] of the bombings and it collapsed and everyone in  it got killed except for him because he wasn't   there at the time and his family is still in  there dead obviously." And you could see he  

[32:27] had lost his mind. Completely lost his mind. And  that really made me think about my kids at home   and they were of the same age. And for some  reason that really stuck with me and it still   is. So the hardest part of the job, believe it or  not, was when you went home on your one month off,  

[32:43] be away from your brothers and you didn't want  anything to happen to them while you were away.   And during those times, they are more important  than your family, you know, and you can't relate  

[32:56] to your family. You can't tell them what you're  doing. They don't understand nor should they,   but your brothers can. And if I thought about the  boy and everything else or sort of other things   that were playing on my mind, it would sort of  send me into a into a dark place. PTSD to me is  

[33:11] like depleted uranium. As time goes on, more sand  covers it and covers it. But as soon as you kick   that sand again, pops up again as fresh as it was  the day I first landed there. So I try and bury  

[33:23] them by by drinking. Alcohol wasn't burying it for  me. Alcohol just kept kicking it and kicking it.   And I joined another sort of company where  the job wasn't as morally sort of sound as  

[33:35] it was. But then again, I was at a mental  state where I didn't care. My high moral   standards had dropped through the sink again  because I was needing money, and you know,  

[33:47] I'd do whatever I had to do to get it. The PTSD  is always there and what helps me control it is   the fact that I don't drink anymore. And it has  certainly helped with the PTSD. It doesn't it   doesn't keep kicking the sand for me. It doesn't  keep bringing it to the surface. It's always there  

[34:04] and I can accidentally kick the sand sometimes.  And it could be just a question like you've asked   me. But I can I can control it better than  when I was drinking — I couldn't control it.

[34:20] I joined the military in 1985 with the intention  of joining the New Zealand Special Air Service.   I did a a year in battalion. Then I got posted to  Singapore for two years early stages of 1988. I   decided I would now try for selection course.  I did selection for our SAS. Very very tough,  

[34:38] very grueling. I passed and then I did seven years  in the Unit itself. We were called the Unit back   then. I was a counterterrorism team commander and  a troop commander in the amphibious unit. So I was  

[34:53] a diver. I really enjoyed my time there. But it  was it's very tough. It's very hard on the body.   So after 10 years in total in in my military  service, I decided to get out and before my  

[35:05] body totally collapsed. Knees were going, hips  were going I was still young enough to sort of,   you know, be able to do some physical work. But  I didn't want to get too old and be completely  

[35:17] broken before I could do anything else with the  skills that it teaches you. It teaches you how to   work alone or how to lead and not everybody can be  a leader. They teach you how to how to think very  

[35:29] quickly and to come to a solution very quickly  and as things change and if it doesn't go to plan,   having another plan. Always thinking thinking  and always working towards a successful outcome.  

[35:42] Your fitness level's supreme and you know making  the most out of sort of quite bad situations and   and pushing yourself further than you perhaps  thought that you could go. So I first joined a  

[35:56] company called Custer Battles. The day-to-day  sort of work that I thought that we'd be doing   was basic close protection, looking after  civilians who were then going around to   different ministries. When I got on the ground, it  soon became apparent to me and and a few others,  

[36:10] that some of the operating procedures were  perhaps verging on a little bit sort of reckless   for what we were expected to do. Even though  it was very initial stages in the in the war,   we knew there wouldn't be a lot of material.  There wouldn't be a lot of equipment. There  

[36:24] wouldn't be a lot of support, but it seemed to  be even less. So when we when we first arrived,   we expected to be fully kitted out body  armor, you know, later Gucci guns, optics,   and all this sort of kit. But when we when we went  to the ranges and we were given these AK-47s that  

[36:39] looked as if they had been used for antipiracy on  the ark, yeah. The sort of red flags started to   pop up. We went on the range a couple of times and  I actually had one explode in my hands. That's how   old it was and how in disrepair this gun was.  Wasn't a good good start. So after a month of  

[36:57] being at Custer Battles, it became very apparent  that things weren't going to get any better   anytime sooner. There was about maybe 11 of us  who were there going, "this is this is not quite   right." But there was one person in the group who  I had not met and he had a contact in back here  

[37:14] in the states of a company called Blackwater. So  word went around without making it too obvious,   that there were meetings going on that we would  break away from Custer Battles. I was given the   opportunity to have a meeting with this guy. After  about an hour, he offered me aa job. He then told  

[37:30] me what the daily rate would be if we succeeded,  which was from $200 a day with Caster Battles to   $600 a day with Blackwater, which is phenomenal  money back then, you know. Phenomenal money.  

[37:45] Particularly for a for someone from New Zealand,  right? I mean, I was doing cartwheels and then   I thought, okay, well, you know, now that I've  got my kahunas out on the table, I'll ask if I   can be the team leader, and then he said yes  again. We all packed up our gear and left.

[38:04] There there will always be a need for for  a mercenary group. I got offered to work as   a mercenary in Ukraine, but the pay wasn't  worth anything for me to be interested in.  

[38:16] And also that kind of warfare is old old style  warfare to be honest. You know, trench warfare,   wearing uniforms. I haven't done that since I was  in the military. And it's a completely different  

[38:31] type of method of fighting compared to what we  were doing in Iraq or or Libya or anywhere else.   And we weren't always fighting in Iraq or Libya or  anything like that. We were protecting. Here, it's  

[38:43] actual sort of, you know, moving up to advance and  face the enemy. That's more a soldier's — that's   a younger person's type of warfare and something  that I hadn't done in a very long time. Currently  

[38:57] I think mercenaries are getting a really bad  name because of what's happening in Israel.   What those guys in my opinion are doing over  there is completely disgraceful. The way I see  

[39:10] how how private military contracting companies  are being used today or mercenary companies:   there's always going to be some part of an entity,  a government or an agency who will use them for   nefarious purposes. And you'll always find people  who would do it. Warfare has changed. Warfare has  

[39:28] changed. I would not want to be a soldier nowadays  with the way particularly the Ukraine with drone   warfare. Being a soldier on the ground is almost  going to be obsolete. Soon as you poke your head   out of a hole, the drone's going to smack into it.  Also with AI that's coming along, it's all going  

[39:44] to be sort of drone and done from afar. It's not  going to be boots on the ground so much anymore.

[39:58] I've semi retired, for the last, say, 15  years on and off. But now, I was working for   a very interesting client human rights  lawyer and we've done some very amazing  

[40:10] some work all around the world as a civilian  bodyguard. For executive protection aid,   whatever you want to call yourself, you don't  have the ability to carry guns everywhere you go.  

[40:22] There's no such thing as an international firearms  license, so you have to rely on your skills,   your observation skills, your instincts, and  your training, and your years of experience.   Whereas an armed mercenary, close protection  agent, you don't have to be the gray man so  

[40:38] much because you're dressed in armor. You've got  a gun, people can see you. When you're a civilian,   you're dressed in a suit or you're dressed  in civilian clothing. You blend in because   the one thing you don't want to do is attract  attention to yourself. I'm in my 60s. I, you know,  

[40:54] like to play golf and sit in the sun a little bit  more now. I've gone away and I've done movies.   I've done TV shows. I've written a book and  it's called "We Were Blackwater" and it's about   everything that we've spoken about. I live with  a wife who now understands I don't drink anymore.  

[41:09] She stopped drinking in order to support me. We  live way up on a hill in a in a country I don't   want to tell you what it is. We rescue animals  and we live a very tranquil life compared to what  

[41:22] it used to be. I now have a better relationship  with my children and through the book they can see   now why I was the absent father that I was far  better than I can verbally explain it to them.

[41:44] Hi, I'm a producer on authorized account. If  you like this episode, then you should check   out our new podcast and comment below with the  names of people you'd love to hear us interview.