Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
"I Was a Propaganda Intern in Iraq"
Willem Marx, a former intern with the Washington-based government contractor, the Lincoln Group, spent a summer in Baghdad paying to plant pro-American articles secretly written by the U.S. military in the Iraqi press.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Training Iraqi cops tries nerves, man says
Sleeping in a Baghdad trailer the size of a cell, Fred Van Dusen grew accustomed to the constant chop of helicopters overhead, the blasts that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing, the thuds that left him lying on his pillow thinking: If I don't wake up in the morning...He would thank God he made it to daylight, put on a business suit and go to work in the old Republican Guard Palace as chief of staff for the Ministry of the Interior.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Baghdad Driving Lesson
A chaser car has more than one purpose. If the people in the main car are kidnapped, the chaser car can follow to see where they are taken. If the main car is disabled by gunfire or an explosion, the chaser car becomes an escape vehicle. Today, we´d found another use I hadn´t thought of: If the main car is pursued, (most likely to kidnap me, and do worse to my driver, whom I won´t name at his request) a chaser car can cut in front, block traffic, and allow the main car to escape.
Saturday, August 12, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Iraq experience an eye-opener for firefighter
Last December, Jeremy Rodecap, began a new life as a contracted firefighter and paramedic in Iraq, stationed on a U.S. military base in the northern Kurdish section of the war-torn country.
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Female truck driver stationed in Iraq writes tell-all book
Most people go to Iraq with the hope to survive the experience and live another day. For 41-year-old Cindy Morgan, she was tired of merely surviving her life — she wanted to go to Iraq to live it.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Five Drivers: Trucking in a War Zone - part three
For those who have returned from Iraq, there are indelible memories of what they lived through. Five ex-KBR truckers share some of their experiences.
Friday, May 26, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Utahn gets 'rush' as bodyguard
McIntosh is one of a growing number of privately contracted bodyguards — many of them ex-soldiers — hired by the U.S. government to protect its officials in Baghdad and other Middle East hot spots.
Saturday, May 20, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Oxford contractor finds Iraqi work exciting
There's nothing quite like working in a war zone. Brandon Burns, 27, just spent two years with Halliburton subsidiary KBR.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Local officers who escaped bomb in Afghanistan describe 'pressure'
It went off about 4 feet from them, lifted truck off ground, they say.
Thursday, April 13, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Troops, Civilians Find Reasons to Stay in Iraq
Money a big draw for some; others seek escape from everyday life.
Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Writer looking for Private Contractors from North East Ohio
A writer wants to interview people from NE Ohio/or around Ohio working (or who have worked and returned; or who are about to start working) as private contractors in Iraq.
Friday, March 17, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Contractor recounts role in training Iraqi police
Last year, about 700 contractors — including DynCorp and two other companies, Science Applications International and the United States Investigative Services — were training more than half the Iraqi Police Service, according to BusinessWeek.
Sunday, February 12, 2006

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
To Hell and Back Home
Back from Iraq after a 13-month stint working as the country's top cop trainer, Michael Heidingsfield is decompressing. "I did not appreciate the scope or scale of the challenge" that he would find there, he says.
Friday, December 23, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Holly Oversees Delivery Of Supplies Exceeding $8 Billion In Iraq
In spite of overwhelming logistical odds, John Holly has led a team of more than 800 Iraqi’s and 300 U.S. contractors to transport critical supplies to Iraqi and Coalition forces since 2003. Over a two-year, turbulent period, Holly’s leadership ensured delivery of $8-10 billion worth of supplies - ranging from hundreds of miles of steel rebar to thousands of police cars, socks to school desks, and X-ray machines to mortar rounds - without loosing even one container to the insurgents.
Saturday, December 17, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Wallace Anderson savors Sunnyside after policing Iraq's police
In October 2003, the former Sunnyside police chief became one of the first 25 police advisers sent to Iraq under a U.S. State Department program. He returned home last month, after extending his one-year contract to two years.
Saturday, September 24, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Hamill recalls harrowing escape
Everyone may not recognize him as he walks down the street, but his photograph, seated in the back seat with his wounded arm may be etched in our minds forever. Thomas Hamill of Macon, was held captive in Iraq for 24 days, and told his story last week.
Friday, September 2, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
From Geneseo to Iraq, one couple's adventure
Voluntarily entering a war zone to rebuild Iraq is something a Geneseo, Ill., couple has done not once, but twice. Accepting the risks of entering a war-torn country and the benefits of what the two call an adventure, Randy and Judy Walters, both 62, decided to fill jobs in Iraq that were available through their employer — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Training Daze
Ever wonder what Americans 'training Iraqi forces' are actually doing? Or if it's going to work? When former East Palo Alto police Sgt. Robert Cole signed up to train the Iraqi police force in June of 2004, he brought with him decades of law enforcement experience and bags of advanced gear, but he never expected to spend so much time sipping tea.
Saturday, August 20, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Facing obstacles, with home in mind
What would you think would be the hardest thing about being in a foreign country that was hostile to you and your countrymen? Jim Johnson, of Hope, can tell more than a few stories that would make the most stoic of persons cringe. Johnson, 73, is a driver of a fuel tanker, in Iraq for a Haliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR). He travels from south to north across the country in a convoy. All eyes are on watch for explosive devices along the dangerous roads for insurgents out in the open shooting at them, snipers and people who simply want to force trucks off the road.
Friday, June 10, 2005

Working Overseas : Personal Experiences
Truck Driver faces danger in Iraq
Numbers alone can't even begin to describe the routine dangers in Iraq. One American truck driver who took a huge risk has made a video diary of his experience. EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has an interesting section on his dispute with KBR about the actual salary paid and how his KBR contract was worded. Worth reading for background info.
Wednesday, March 9, 2005