I am not a KBR combat plumber. I am a Private Military Contractor who has been working armed in the sandboxes of the world for over 6 years now.
Afghanistan I was contracted to Department of State as a Police Advisor and Trainer for the Afghan National Police. We taught a variety of topics from Personal Security, Firearms, Afghan Constitutional Law to Drug Interdiction. I started off in Kabul teaching and writing lesson plans, policy and procedures to be used. I then took my team and spent the next 15 months in the southern provinces of Helmond, Kandahar and Uruzgan attached to the 3rd and 7th SFG teaching those subjects and advising local forces along with the Dutch, British, Canadian, Romanian and Australian Armies and SF Units.
This is one of the PSD teams that I was with. This was taken at the Kabul International Airport. The helicopter in the background is an Mi-26 Hip, the largest transport helicopter in the world as far as I know. We used these Mi-8 Hips and vintage Hueys. Travel in Kabul at this time, and still is, could be a bit tricky. There were few good roads so you did not have much choice as to your routes.
This is from Uruzgan Province. We assisted the locals in arresting/confiscating 10,000 pounds of Hashish. The bundle in the background burning is about 400 pounds worth. My partner in crime is also a former Marine and Police Officer. When the fighting became to intense for the Police to come to us we would fly out to their regions "A team" camp and teach from there.
The contracts I have worked on including Kuwait (DOD) and Iraq (DOD and DOS) standards were pretty stiff just to be considered for the contract. Afghanistan required 8 years as a trainer or instructor with all credentials current, then you had to go to three weeks in Virginia at the Crucible/Kelly McCann and his cadre of SF and Active Duty Marine Instructors. Only about 40% made it through the testing, evaluations, firearms and the PT tests. Here in Iraq I am a trainer on another DOS/OSCI (Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq) which recently switched over from the DOD when the military left or most of them anyway.
I came to Iraq as a Medical Officer, I was an LPN in the Army National Guard, and worked my way up so to speak to the Site Security Manager for several camps throughout Iraq. You have to have a unique skillset to work on these contracts. At one time I was the Medical Officer, Operations Officer and Armorer at the same time. No more money just more work.
The smallest camp I was on was a COP (Combat Outpost). A 100 or so soldiers and 50 contractors which was located three clicks from Iran. The camp was destroyed by IRAM's and taking the lives of soldiers and other contractors who were friends of mine, the day after I turned over security to the Army Unit there just as they completed the handover to the Iraqi Army.
The largest is where I am at now a COS (Contingency Operating Station) in Northern Iraq almost to Kurdistan. At it's peak housed and maintained several thousand Airmen and Soldiers securing the city of Kirkuk and the Airbase located here. I was the Site Security Manager here for 300 guards, K-9's, US Supervisors and 11 miles of perimeter and the only airfield in the area. At it's peak we received 94 rockets in a month, now we only get a couple a week.
Standards can be set as high or as low as a city/government or whomever would want them to be. Most of the time the current employees if they meet the standards would be transitioned over to the new contract. Please keep in mind that one of the things a company does is find people whom are already trained to a high standard, most of the time higher than what is there, and they bring them in and simply add to the training they already have. In most cases the incoming individuals will gel as a team in a very short time without any further training if they have to but we also train on our own to a higher standard DOS required or not.
Yes the money paid is good but the risk is high but you get what you pay for.