Only 2 types of people do not own this book – hippies and the illiterate

They say that back in the day a viable defense for a charge of manslaughter was “He needed killing.” This, no doubt, was a very popular state of affairs in East Texas, the setting of Seth Anderson Bailey’s writing debut.

Bailey, a wounded Iraq War veteran was formerly a 82nd Airborne Division LRSD “Lurp”(Long Range Surveillance Detachment) . Likewise, his protagonist, Jedediah Shaw, is a former paratrooper and an Iraq War veteran with his own rucksack full of demons.

Shaw returns to the small East Texas town he calls home and an oft times tumultuous relationship with Abigail, the girl he previously left behind to go off and fight “his” war. But, like a lot of returning vets have realized, it was easier carrying an M-4 and door kicking in Baghdad than it is returning to “normal” life and handling the everyday demands of civilian life as a husband and a college student.

Despite heartfelt promises he made himself in the desert , or maybe because of them, he finds himself leading a life of quiet desperation, working as muscle for a local bondsman.

Running down bail jumpers doesn’t quite pay the bills though and he soon finds himself mired by debt and looking for a way out. And of course someone makes him an offer. Good money for a simple task, or so he tells himself. The evil-doing rich scion of a local dynasty contacts Jeb. He wants his old high school classmate to find his sister and return her home.

Click Here to Keep Reading – BOOKS: “And the Rain Came Down” by S. A. Bailey >>>

Our Foreign Correspondent Rob Krott sent me a copy of the book he wrote about the time he spent as a mercenary and contractor in the 90’s; “SAVE THE LAST BULLET FOR YOURSELF: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia”.

As a big fan of books about modern Mercenaries, Private Military Companies (PMC) and Civilian Contracting I have been quite disappointed with the rash of so called mercenary and civilian contractor books that have been released lately.

Pretty much all of them are written by an observer or war tourist who would spend a week or two in a war zone and then proclaim themselves “experts” or an “authority” on the contracting and private soldiering business then write a book.

That’s why reading Rob Krott’s book was a breath of fresh air amongst the poser PMC books – this book was written by someone that actually did what he wrote about. For those of you that don’t know about Rob Krott he is the former Chief Foreign Correspondent for Soldier of Fortune Magazine and has been writing about the Mercenary, Private Military Company (PMC) and Civilian Contracting business for quite some time.

Click Here to Read More >>>

Back at the hotel that night I learned that five utility company or construction workers (reports varied) were snatched near Tetovo by Albanians and beaten. They were released after having the initials of their captors carved in their backs. They were made to pray to Allah if they wanted water. Nice people, those Albanians.

The impetus for the demonstrations the night before were the ten soldiers killed in an ambush just north of Tetovo. A 40-vehicle convoy of troop transports, tanks, and APCs was making its weekly rotation to Tetovo. The NLA fired it up with RPGs and machine-guns 10 miles west of Skopje near Bojane. Eight of the dead were from Prilep. Despite ongoing peace negotiations the war continued unabated.

I took a cab to the Macedonian defense ministry on Orce Nikolov. When I arrived I walked through the gate and approached a soldier, Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, standing behind a pile of sandbags that was “tactical” (it was draped with camouflage shelter halves). He looked confused at my approach and nervously fingered his walkie-talkie.

In my very best Serbo-Croat (Bosnian accent) I said “Dobro jutro” and pointed at myself, smiled and said, “Amerikanac novinar.” He just pointed to the building’s front entrance further down the driveway. I walked over to the building up the frayed red carpet and entered. Inside I began to tell the entranceway receptionist why I was there when an MP soldier in British DPM type BDUs, white pistol belt, and holster approached me.

He spoke some English and some phone calls were made. I was asked to wait so I cooled my heels in the waiting room and chain-smoked Henri Winterman cigarillos beneath two oil paintings of troops in action. Although there was no one available to speak to me he seemed upset that I hadn’t called first. Of course I didn’t have an appointment … that’s why I was there: to make one if no one was available to assist me. I was told to call.

What number? They didn’t know and couldn’t find out. But I must call tomorrow. You can’t get an appointment in person, you must call first, but we won’t give you the number to call. Catch-22 Macedonian style. Eventually they gave me a phone number to call later in the afternoon and/or the option to arrive with an interpreter in the morning. Great, now I had to find an interpreter. I thanked the soldier who, despite no visible rank insignia, by his demeanor I thought was a lieutenant.

I went back to the Dal Met Fu cafe/hotel where I had been sitting the day before when the demonstrators marched past to the government offices. On the corner of the block a shoe store had been vandalized: all the plate glass windows broken out. Cobblestones and pieces of brick rested in the piles of glass on the sidewalk.

An ambush that killed ten soldiers (mostly reservists from Prilep) prompted demonstrations and vandalism over the two days following the incident. Several people told me this response was a show of people’s frustration against their own government and the military’s ineffectiveness.  There was a lot of dissatisfaction with the lack of decisive action in the wake of the recent combat deaths of Macedonian soldiers.

Targeted for protests were the prime minister’s offices and other government offices. Vandalism targeted ethnic Albanian or Muslim owned businesses. The next day (Friday) eight more soldiers were killed and nine wounded when their convoy drove over daisy-chained mines laid on the road near Ljubanci and Ljuboten just six miles north of Tetovo.

That made eighteen dead (the same number of combat deaths that prompted the US withdrawal from Somalia) in the last few days. Quite a few for a small, insular country like Macedonia. Even given the casualties the army had suffered in the last few days there were no anti-war protests. Yet.

As I looked over the damage, several girls in light summer dresses walked by. There was a mall nearby and this was a touristy area, just a few blocks from the old stone bridge and Kale fortress. Before attempting to contact the press people at the defense ministry again I decided to while away a few hours in the cafe.

I know my constant cautionary advice to fellow travelers is to avoid such places in countries and cities involved in war, rebellion, or civil strife. In light of my near miss at Kampala’s Speke Hotel (editor’s note; the table next to Rob’s was the site of a terrorist bomb attack in 1998) I’m doubly cautious, but I like to watch the street and take things in so I sit near an exit if possible with my back to the wall.

I’m careful to watch the street for anything out of place and I visually survey other patrons. I will immediately warn the establishment and then leave if I see an abandoned package or bag.

There in the center of the city the over flights of helicopters heading to the “war zone” a few miles away drowned out the American pop tunes playing in the cafe. When the fighter-bombers shrieked overhead people put their hands to their ears. As a jet streaked past rattling the windows one lady looked at me and in fractured English said, “This is bad situation.”

Yeah, no kidding.

~RK

At least ten of Osama bin Laden’s close associates were involved with the organizing, financing and arming of the NLA in Macedonia

According to the Utrinski Vesnik, a Skopje daily newspaper, at least ten of Osama bin Laden’s close associates are directly and personally involved with the organizing, financing and arming of the NLA were in Kosovo during the crisis. Using false passports they infiltrated Macedonia to organize the NLA.

Two Saudi nationals, Fatah Ali Hasanin and Omar Alavadi, are considered the principal founders of the NLA in Macedonia. Utrinski Vesnik published a list of bin Laden’s associates in the Balkans claiming that Hasanin, an Al Qaida member, is supposedly in charge of the jihad in Southeast Europe.

During the Kosovo crisis, “according to some intelligence sources,” Hasanin was in Macedonia, i.e. in Skopje, Tetovo, and Gostivar to organize military training for the NLA. He occasionally traveled to Kosovo via a KFOR vehicle with French license plates. He had a meeting with Hashim Taci, who used to be a KLA(UCK) leader and is now a leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

During the past few years, Hasanin stayed in Vienna, where he had founded a humanitarian organization, named “The Third World,” tasked to finance the expansion of Muslim fundamentalism in the Balkans, especially in Kosovo and Macedonia. Formerly a councilor to President Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, he traveled throughout the Balkans.

According to the Skopje paper, Omar Alavadi, is an associate of Bin Laden and is closely connected to Hasanin. It is believed that he made necessary arrangements for military training of Albanian terrorists in Macedonia, coordinating with them in Tetovo, Gostivar, Skopje, and Kicevo. His associate, Edi Debsi, is thought to be connected in some way with German intelligence.

The war in northern Macedonia was direct spillage from the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. I know for a fact that weapons bought on the black-market in 1993 in Tomislavgrad, Bosnia, were shipped to Kosovo. The looting of Albanian armories armed most of the NLA rebels.

Hundreds of thousands of AK-47s and other weapons were looted from Albanian Army supply depots during the Albanian crisis in 1997. Many were smuggled across the border by Albanian militants to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army in their secessionist war against Serbia. Those weapons have since found their way into northern Macedonia. Usually strapped to the back of a KLA veteran.

A Capital At War

Skopje, the capital of Macedonia

Skopje, the capital of Macedonia (population about 440,000), is located in the north central part of the country where it straddles the Vardar River. Skopje is also the birthplace of Mother Theresa and a plaque in the main square, Macedonia Place, marks the site of the house where she was born.

In ancient times Skopje was the capital of the kingdom of Dardania. In the late medieval period it was captured first by the Serbs (1282), then by the Turks (1392), and became a key city in the Ottoman Empire. Following the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), it was ceded to Serbia and became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929).

An earthquake destroyed most of the city, including many of its ancient mosques, in 1963, but some of the city’s surviving architecture still reflects the Ottoman influence.

Unarmed soldiers in BDU pants and green t-shirts walked around openly in Skopje. Skopje like any modern city has a myriad of soft targets for dedicated urban terrorists, whether an unarmed soldier wearing his cammies and walking home, a street-side cafe, the Macedonian telecommunications building, or a crowded shopping center.

Yet people went about their business shopping, working, and hanging out in cafes. Young boys were trying to cool off in the Vardar River, lovers lounged in the park, Albanian-Muslim women wearing head scarves and the heavy dark dresses which look like winter coats did their shopping, and pairs of young men sat in cafes where they drank beer and watched the girls go by.

I was doing much the same. Having arrived in late afternoon, too late to coordinate with the Ministry of Defense or anyone else, I dropped my ruck in a cheap bed and breakfast type hotel, stuffed my notebook and some film in my pockets, grabbed one of my cameras and caught a cab down to the city center.

I took a walk around the historic section taking in the square with Mother Teresa’s monument, the 15th century bridge over the Vardar, and the old Kale fortress ruins – all Skopje landmarks. Having worked up a good sweat in the summer heat, I stopped at a popular cafe to cool off with a cold Skopsko beer. After about ten minutes people began to stop on the sidewalk nearby to look up the street.

I left my table to see a group of marchers with a Macedonian flag and a few carrying signs of protest. I followed the crowd which swelled with other curious onlookers and, as can be expected, the usual gaggle of kids, teenagers, and lay-abouts looking for trouble and / or excitement.

The Skopje riverfront

Having blocked the street with bicycle racks and small dumpsters the demonstration gathered in front of government offices in the lee of the hill occupied by the Kale ruins.

A girl wrapped in a Macedonian flag saw my camera and waved at me … some of these kids were media savvy. Some were obviously University of Skopje students. After I photographed the girl with the flag the local press finally arrived: a reporter from a newspaper but without a photographer, a photographer from another paper, and a TV cameraman.

The cops (some were already blocking the street to vehicle traffic) then showed up in force in a van. About ten cops piled out. Some wore helmets with riot visors, but most looked unprepared for riot control – unless that meant popping off 9mm rounds into the crowd. They pushed through the crowd and took up positions by the doors.

I went over to take a photo. Having initially stood atop a three-foot high dividing wall as many people were doing and been screamed at by one old lady on my right and some guy with a sizeable beer gut on my left, I had moved to the outer ring of the crowd. Crowds sometimes become mobs, and I made sure I had an escape route. But now there was no other recourse but to move quickly and aggressively into the crowd to get pictures of the cops.

A few of the cops saw me and waved me off. I got off a few frames and then some asshole wearing only knee shorts appointed himself boss and pushed me yelling, “Go! Now, go! Now.” Well, hell, I thought that’s not very nice. The local press could take photos but I was not welcome. There were no other non-Macedonian journalists there.

I told one of the reporters to be careful, we’d been talking previously and someone might think he was with me. The crowd moved off down the street, resuming their march, to demonstrate in front of the American Embassy. Yes, everything was America’s fault!

I’d only been in country three or four hours and soon experienced some obvious anti-foreigner feelings in Skopje. Friends in Bulgaria told me this the day before. Yep, when your country is all screwed up … blame the foreign journalists.

There was a widely held belief that the Albanian insurgents were hiding behind EU/NATO/US forces and diplomats whenever things got tough. Whether true or not this perception was not making us any friends in Macedonia.

anti-U.S. sentiment during a demonstration in Skopje

I was warned a few days later by three Skopje twenty-something’s that if I saw another demonstration or a group gathering to beat feet as the level of anti-western and anti-U.S. sentiment was so high that it could be very dangerous. The U.S. had stepped in to prevent the sale of more heavy military weaponry to Macedonia from Ukraine (like the Hinds).

This was greatly resented in both countries (I had just left Kiev the week before traveling to Skopje). Most Macedonians thought the west supported Albanians because of what happened in the village of Arachinovo where strong diplomatic pressure and U.S. soldiers with buses re-located beleaguered Albanian fighters.

The papers were full of articles about U.S. instructors working in Kosovo with “Albanian terrorists” and the U.S. Army’s support of the Kosovars. Americans definitely weren’t flavor of the month in Skopje.

I had noticed a few looks from people just in passing, but by and large the average person in Skopje was friendly toward me and quite a few shopkeepers and taxi drivers made a point of giving me unexpected change — passing up the opportunity to rip-off a foreigner. However, it was a different dynamic in a mob of angry demonstrators.

NLA rebels in Macedonia 2001

Rain plastered my t-shirt to my body. Even with the overcast sky and the drizzling rain it was hot in Tetovo. The soldiers manning the roadblock and yelling at me in Macedonian made that obvious. Clad in civilian clothes, albeit also wearing a green SOF t-shirt and GI jungle boots, I didn’t present a military target and tried to exit the battered Mercedes as nonchalantly as possible.

I could hear the unmistakable rattle-rattle of automatic weapons fire in the distance. My driver was nervous and begged me to leave my camera in the car…

Tucked into the rolling hills near the Kosovar border and about 25 miles west of Skopje, Tetovo, one of the five largest cities in Macedonia, was the latest simmering conflict in an area that has become the boiling pot of modern European land warfare. Tetovo is a large northwestern town with a mainly ethnic-Albanian population.

The political tensions between the Macedonian government and the country’s Albanian minority first erupted over the University of Tetovo, an Albanian-language university in the city. Established by ethnic Albanians in 1995 it quickly was declared illegal by Macedonia and became a symbol of the ethnic strife, resulting in violent clashes between police and demonstrators.

In the Spring of 2001 minor ethnic clashes and street demonstrations grew into a full-scale guerrilla war. Adding this to Croatia and Bosnia it was my third Balkan war … having sat out the whole Kosovo thing.

The University of Tetovo, an Albanian-language university in Macedonia where the tensions between the Macedonian government and Albanian minority began

This conflict, like Kosovo, was a surprise to no one. I was bumming around Eastern Europe that summer parachuting and decided I’d take a look. For most of the summer the conflict escalated after the initial hostilities and was soon a full-blown counter-insurgency in northern Macedonia.

Leaving Bulgaria where I was hanging out with their special forces, I was off to Skopje on the next available flight. I scanned the English language papers for news on Macedonia. It was obvious that the fighting and a possible impending ceasefire wasn’t front-page news, even in Europe.

The “news” was Britain’s negotiations for an IRA ceasefire and the Palestinian problem — which occurred to me, have been pretty much constant headlines since I was old enough to read a newspaper. On my flight into Skopje I noticed the home team was in town.

a map of the insurgency in Macedonia 2001

The three guys with short haircuts wearing the Levi’s and the Wranglers were definitely North Americans. Americans stick out in a European crowd unless we wear too much cologne and purposefully dress like euro trash.

Even if the snuff can rings on the back pockets weren’t enough of a giveaway, one stud with a G.I. haircut had the “danger mines” death’s head patch visible through the net mesh pocket of his daypack while another was wearing a C-130 Hercules ball cap. How low key is that?

Macedonian police in camouflage uniforms and combat body armor were dispersed on the runway awaiting our disembarkation. I guess this very visible yet meaningless heightened security was in case some well-known Albanian terrorist decided to alight from the airliner. An improbable situation I thought at the time but in light of recent events, definitely possible.

Two teenaged boys looked out the window after landing and exclaimed “Hey, that’s a Kalashnikov!” Their mother didn’t look as thrilled. Inside the terminal some G.I. duffle bags came off the luggage belt. I didn’t attempt any conversation with the G.I.s or whoever they were as they didn’t need any more attention than they were already drawing to themselves and I certainly didn’t want to complicate my arrival. I grabbed my Becker ruck and walked under the Marlboro welcome sign to customs.

Heavily armed national police manned several checkpoints and sandbagged positions along the drive into Skopje. I soon learned that the taxi fare to or from the airport went up or down depending on the fortunes of war. If things were less than peaceful and there was a real possibility of an ambush on the highway, then the fare was 50 Deutschmarks (DM) or maybe as much as 100 DM — German money being a popular medium of exchange in Macedonia.

On the way to my hotel I heard the unmistakable rush of a helicopter turbine and looked out the window to see a Macedonian Army HIND-D attack helicopter skimming the rooftops. I would see several helicopters and fast movers over the city in the next few days and from my vantage point, a hotel on a hill in the city’s outskirts, I watched them fly through the valley on their way to the fighting near Tetovo.

a Macedonian Mi-24 attacking rebels during the Albanian insurgency

I learned from the Ministry of Defense that there were a total of seventeen helicopters in action including Mi-17, Mi-8, and Mi-24 HINDs for transport, recon, and combat missions. There were four Sukhoi-25 attack aircraft committed to the fighting.

The situation in Skopje when I arrived was tense as a police counter-terrorist operation the day before my arrival was the talk of the town. The police claimed five Albanian “terrorists” were killed in a firefight in an apartment in a Skopje neighborhood.

However, I learned that an Albanian woman said she was awakened in the middle of the night when the police/military raid team hit the house and killed five male “visitors.” I guess one man’s terrorist is another man’s, er, visitor… She claimed the five men (who she of course did not know) were not Albanian terrorists.

I wondered how these completely innocent men came to be in possession of a large arms cache. The raid made the front page of the Macedonian papers. In a photo of the contraband captured in the raid I counted at least six assault rifles, one scoped folding stock assault rifle, several loaded magazines, camouflage uniforms, and a large pile of ammo bandoliers for the Armscorp 40mm grenade launcher.

I recognized the packaging and distinctive labeling from my experience with them in Bosnia and there were loose rounds displayed on top of the pile. There were two of the distinctive revolver-action, six-cylinder, folding-stock, optically sighted grenade launchers lying nearby. Just what every visitor keeps in his overnight bag. Another successful operation had just occurred as I left the airport: an Albanian convoy was shot up and several Albanian “terrorists” were killed.

a member of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)

Macedonia’s foes were supposedly homegrown ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA). Roughly a third of Macedonia’s population of 2 million is Albanian. In many areas of northwestern Macedonia, where the Albanians are concentrated, Albanian paramilitary groups were formed and trained in 2000 by veterans of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

The organization was modeled on the KLA. Many of the younger recruits also had regular army training from service as Macedonian Army conscript.

I soon learned that most of the Albanian fighters were actually Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) or in Albanian: Ushtria Clirimtare E Kosoves (UCK). Weeks later when the Albanians turned in their weapons many were seen wearing UCK emblems on their uniforms and caps. The Kosovo Liberation Army does not believe in negotiations and diplomacy and say they will liberate the Albanian people.

The KLA’s spokesmen have stated its mission only too succinctly: “Our job is to liberate the whole of Kosovo, as well as the Albanians in Macedonia and Montenegro.” The obvious agenda is the formation of a “Greater Albania.”

Ivan Marovic, a Macedonian veteran of the old Yugoslav Army, told me that the NLA would stop at an Albanian house and leave two uniforms. If they don’t receive the uniforms back with two bodies (recruits) inside them the next day, then they go back to the house and leave two bars of soap. This means wash yourself – to a Muslim: prepare to go to heaven. Sometimes they may pay a DM 5,000 indemnity for excusal from military service.

"No Other Option" by Marcus Wynne

Smell the Cordite, Feel the Muzzle Blasts….

I don’t read much fiction – mostly I only spend my time with non-fiction military history. So trust me when I tell you this thriller is a first-class great read. Marcus Wynne’s No Other Option has been out for nearly a decade and there is a sequel as well — Brothers in Arms which links the hero of  No Other Option with the hero of Warrior in the Shadows — so this is first in a series of three.

No Other Option is a page-turner of a novel, packed with realistic up-close and personal gunplay and urban combat, high body counts, and exploding cop cars. If I didn’t already know the author personally I’d be completely blown away and wondering where this guy has been hiding…

Wynne’s story is about a spec ops NCO who “goes off the reservation” and is incarcerated in federal prison. Schooled in the art of military mayhem as a trained killer, Jonny Maxwell, the villain, was once a high-speed, low-drag special operations soldier. Unfortunately, Maxwell had one serious flaw: he was an insane serial rapist who liked to listen to tape recordings of his crimes while on his military missions.

Here, Wynne has created a real scumbag of a bad guy and a seriously formidable individual. Some one you want to blow away yourself. Jonny escapes from Leavenworth with the intention to wreak as much havoc as possible and make a major “score” on his way out of the country. In his wake is a bloody trail of mayhem and carnage. Tops on his list for revenge is his old friend and protégé, Dale Miller, who testified against him.

Two Unidentified Marcus Wynne Fans in an Undisclosed Location

Miller is sent by his commander in Special Operations Command to assist the Federal Marshals in hunting Maxwell down – and if necessary, exterminating him with extreme prejudice. Miller wants to capture Maxwell and return him to prison, but you just know that ain’t gonna happen.

He embarks on this mission with his trusty MP-5 submachine gun and a bag of tricks. He links up with some cops who are mistrustful and to keep things steamy, a Twin Cities homicide detective named Nina Capushek. Nina is a tough, capable female who, like Miller, thrives on danger, adrenaline, and a life on the edge. They deal will several cops and Federal Marshals, who view Miller as an adversary and someone to mistrust. Further complicating matters for Miller is another “operator” sent to shadow Miller and to kill Maxwell if Miller can’t do the job.

No Other Option is a standout amongst thrillers. Written by an “operator” it brings a taunt, action-packed story from the shadowy world of covert operations into the bright light of federal law enforcement. It’s so technically accurate and realistic the cordite will sting your eyes and the muzzle blasts will make you flinch. I read this book in one sitting.

It has garnered recommendations from Stephen Coonts, David Morrell, and John “Lofty” Wiseman.

Why is it so good? Maybe because Marcus Wynne is the real deal: a former grunt who patrolled the Korean DMZ as an original member of our North Korean Hunting Club. An ex-82nd Airborne trooper, he later became a Federal Air Marshal. He led a counter-terrorist Air Marshal team during the Gulf War and was later hired as a private consultant to train the South Africa Police Services’ hostage rescue team and Nelson Mandela’s Presidential Protection Unit.

"Clutch" and "Cohiba" (Rob Krott) at the Counter-Terrorism Special Operations Facility (CTSOF) Baghdad, Iraq, enjoying some smokes and Marcus Wynne novels. 2004.

He’s also a serious martial arts “player” and a skilled gunfighter. So if you’re tired of reading books where the author doesn’t know a 9mm from an entrenching tool, rest assured this book is accurate. Wynne gets it right, without boring you with arcane technical details or Clancy-esque techno-babble. And there’s rumors of a movie deal — hopefully they’ll make it into an action adventure movie without messing up the BTDT accuracy.

Rob Krott

From Mercenary to Security Contractor and Back Again

CATO Institute

by David Isenberg
U.S. Navy veteran David Isenberg is a military affairs analyst. He is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and the author of a forthcoming book, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq

Added to cato.org on September 12, 2008
This article appeared in United Press International on September 12, 2008.

By legal definition, security contractors are not mercenaries, but the dividing line is porous: There is nothing to say today’s contractor was not a mercenary in the past. And even if he was not, he could be in the future.

After all, both use somewhat similar skill sets, at least in terms of military expertise. The main difference nowadays is that security contractors protect their clients while mercenaries fight in combat.

That said, being a mercenary is not necessarily a bad thing, as a newly published book seeks to explain.

The book is “Save the Last Bullet for Yourself: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia.” The author is Rob Krott, a former U.S. Army officer who worked as a mercenary in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in 1992 and 1993, and as a contractor in Somalia. Since then he has served in the field with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army and has worked on contract in Latin America, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Yemen and parts of the former Soviet Union. Most recently, he served about three years as a “security specialist” in Iraq. Krott was on active duty in the U.S. Army for most of the 1980s and did some time in the National Guard and Reserves, but soon discovered he was not cut out for a career in civilian life.

He is honest enough about why he does the work. He gets a kick out of it. He writes, “I do what I do because I like it, it interests me, it beats the hell out of riding a desk all day long, and maybe because I’ve got a serious adrenaline jones.” He makes no preens about having deep insights; it is just his story.

And, for the most part, it is a pretty interesting story, marred only by the periodic use of cliches like “lock and load” or “rock and roll.” And, at times, he has a tendency to get a little immersed in military tradecraft. Nobody really needs to know about the Panama Triangle patrol base technique or the details of sniping with a 7.92mm Yugoslav Mauser. But those are minor problems.

The book opens with Krott defending himself against a drunk mercenary who fails in killing him only because the selector switch on his AK-47 was on safe. He and Krott are part of a unit of the King Tomislav Brigade, part of the Croat Defense Force. Krott worked as a trainer-adviser teaching basic soldiering and infantry tactics — in short, a leader of mercenary troops.

This was back in 1992, when the action in the Balkans still was on the back pages in most of the U.S. media. One thing that Krott makes clear quickly is that the glamorous Hollywood portrayal of high-paid international mercenaries is sheer fiction. What is more likely is that your unit will consist of ex-convicts, drug addicts, alcoholics and outright psychotics, many of whom couldn’t fight their way out of a paper sack. That helps explain why at a certain point the Croatians refused to take on any more “international volunteers.”

Krott spends a few months in the country before local politics force him to leave, right before war starts in Bosnia.

In his next job he is working for what we now call a private military contractor. He gets a gig with BDM Inc., one of the myriad of government contractors around Washington, as the assistant team chief of the Somali Linguist Team, a 100-person unit of native Somalis recruited off the streets of D.C. to translate for U.S. personnel in the field.

This job is instructional for what we might think of various private military contractors today. The State Department had no idea of how to vet the Somalis and didn’t even know enough to ask for the interpreters’ clan affiliation, a mistake that would cost them later.

The way BDM operated in Somalia then, according to Krott, could just as well be said about many companies in Iraq now. Krott writes, “BDM had painted a glowing picture of how the contract was run. They didn’t mention any of the problems we had encountered in Somalia, or in recruiting and administering the Somalis, hence there were no lessons learned.”

The lessons one draws from reading of Krott’s experience in Somalia will dismay those who think private military contractors are an essential part of future humanitarian operations in Africa or elsewhere, as many of those advocating greater involvement in Sudan’s Darfur region seem to believe. Some good things may result, but it is far from clear that it will be worth the cost or effort, despite all the claims made for private-sector cost-effectiveness. His bottom line: “It was all for nothing.”

The last portion of the book takes Krott back to the Balkans. In 1993 he is part of a Soldier of Fortune magazine training team in Bosnia, once again assisting the King Tomislav Brigade to train Croatians fighting the Serbs. This time he has better comrades in his unit than he did in Croatia. We learn the background and motivations of mercenaries from France, Germany and Britain, among many other countries.

Another important point is that many mercenaries are in it for the sheer thrill and adventure of it, not for the pay. Krott notes that most mercenary soldiers weren’t getting paid more than a few hundred dollars a month. That’s less than you can get serving fries and burgers at McDonald’s. It helps explain why so many mercenaries were barely functional. Certainly, no well-trained mercenary with solid soldiering skills would want to work for such paltry wages, if money were their primary motivation.

Krott ends with an epilogue that recounts the sad and often dismal end of many of the mercenaries he served with. One can only hope, for the sake of the private military industry, that it manages to weed out many of the misfits that Krott encountered.

Neptunus Lex

If you grew up with a martial mindset in the late 70s and early 80s, it was impossible not to be aware of the magazine “Soldier of Fortune.” A quick perusal of the subject matter revealed a fixation on military weapons and tactics at the unit level, and opportunities to be had the world over – there was always trouble brewing somewhere. That was during the Cold War of course, when wars were fought by proxy. If anything, things got more chaotic after the Berlin Wall came down.

It wasn’t quite my cup of tea: Blowing bubbles in the mud at a couple hundred dollars a month while rounds snapped overhead in the service of one or another otherwise indistinguishable foreign autocrat warmed no cockles in my patriotic heart. And the classified ads in the back spoke of sociopaths looking for work to wet. I found it off-putting myself, but each to his own says I, and every man must find beauty where he can.

Rob Krott, a Pennsylvania hill boy and a veteran of US Army infantry tours in Korea and elsewhere, found his beauty fighting foreign wars with an AK-47 in his hand.

He was, as he freely admits, a mercenary.

We should probably choose another word: “Mercenary”sounds so, well. Mercenary. But Krott makes clear that there’s little more than survival rations fighting in the seams of wars the rest of the world would rather not think about. Having next to nothing, his Croat patrons couldn’t pay much. The best money Krott made was as a contractor for the US government in hopeless Somalia.

The word has a pejorative connotation over here, always has. The otherwise neutral Swiss have earned something of a reputation for themselves out of doors in the old country, while the Hessians fought over here for pay, making no friends along the way. We’ve a decided preference for citizen soldiers, muskets and back yards. We resent going afield, do it only when we think we have to for the sake of the Republic and scamper home as soon as ever we might.

But some of us are not all of us, and for a professional soldier concluding his work in a peacetime army, sometimes the lure of adventure beckons. Some men fight not because their country is threatened, but because that is all they know. They’re made for it.

It has to be adventure, or a desire to put one’s skills to the active test: For $100 per month, the only people who’d choose to sign on in Other People’s Wars are those who 1) aren’t welcome at home, or 2) are never happier than with a full magazine, load bearing equipment and someone to shoot at that shoots back. For an adrenaline junkie, it is the most dangerous game.

You get introduced to the lot of adrenaline junkies in Krott’s book. It’s a peek inside a world that few know but many wonder about. A pull no punches novel that reads like an extended conversation over endless bottles of beer. There’s a feeling of stubbled beards, stubbed cigarettes and lurking danger.

Krott starts out in the Balkans, and ends there too, with a brief interlude in Somalia. Other climes are hinted at – other books promised – but the story is clear enough: In the late 20th century’s wars of suddenly liberated sectarians, any fight will do. It’s only a matter of making your way over, clearing customs, picking the side that most needs your help and telling a compelling story. When you’re on the side of the hard pressed – the Serbs alone had armor – almost any story would apparently do.

Krott has good words for most he fought for, and a few for those he fought alongside to go with his unmasked contempt for many – the wannabe’s who’d bluff and bluster but never show up. He reserves his worst condemnation for a few of those that do. The psychopaths, mental deficients and serial liars who drop in, draw weapons and then scamper home, whether that be to a tavern behind the lines or all the way back to Germany, France, Britain or America. Intermixed with these are examples of real heroism, even grace. It’s a picture that never quite coalesces, a canvas that remains maddeningly impenetrable.

Just as those who haven’t served under arms in their country’s defense will never really understand those who have, so too will the rest of us – even those who have had the opportunity to be shot at and shoot back -  never really understand what it means to sleep off a hangover in Tomislava before setting off on a combat patrol against irregular Serbian militias in the contested hamlets of a disintegrating country. Krott’s book brings you close to understanding the players, if not the game.

Recommended.

This is my new website, I hope everyone likes it

RK