U.S. Military High Awards/Medals Question.

[DockyWocky]

It's entirely possible that the President gave him the medal, but that it's not the MoH. When visiting hospitals and bases, sometimes they work out photo-ops for POTUS, seeing him award medals to heroes, or injured personnel gives him credibility by extension. The higher medals are always big news when they are given out though.

I'll look through some stuff real quick, and let you know if any of the bigger medals have been handed out for anything similar to his situation. I wouldn't post it on here, but you could also PM me his name if you wanted, it may or may not speed up the search.

Blackwater (which is now not even called Blackwater btw) does do a lot of recruiting from former military and law enforcement. Unless he was Recon or MARSOC, it's doubtful that they sought him out, but still possible.

You're totally right about the fish tales. And unless you are/were in the military, its very difficult to tell what's on the up and up and what is total BS. Does he say he doesn't want to talk about it, or can't talk about it? There's a difference. While very few incidents are classified enough to not talk about, its completely conceivable that he just doesn't want to revisit those feelings.

[Mr Sloth]

Yeah he did not get the MoH that was easily confirmed haha. So it would have to be something else.

He is full of shit, PMC's will not seek you out, you apply to them and hope like hell you can get in. PMC's are flooded with applications from ex-military types, they are even rejecting SNCO's from combat arms.

I also figured that about the PMC's I get the gist of how they work and figured he was full of shit. This friend assured me he was not bsing though and has an accepted "Package" with BW(His terminology not mine). Whatever that means. He just hasn't signed any contracts with them I believe he is mulling it over.

Even to my denial he did confirm multiple times that BW sought him out ever since he was still in the USMC. I was also in disbelief and still am a bit.

[Jackmoves]

Congressional Gold Medal is one for civilians, not sure how it ranks. There was a bunch of congressmen here last year giving one to Wallenberg, posthumous obviously.

[Deleted]

Yeah he did not get the MoH that was easily confirmed haha. So it would have to be something else.



I also figured that about the PMC's I get the gist of how they work and figured he was full of shit. This friend assured me he was not bsing though and has an accepted "Package" with BW(His terminology not mine). Whatever that means. He just hasn't signed any contracts with them I believe he is mulling it over.

Even to my denial he did confirm multiple times that BW sought him out ever since he was still in the USMC. I was also in disbelief and still am a bit.

Well Blackwater no longer exists, thats a pretty big hint there. I think he is doing what Military people are famous for and exaggerating a bit, no harm in it until they start believing in their own fantasies.

[NoRest4Wicked]

Well Blackwater no longer exists, thats a pretty big hint there. I think he is doing what Military people are famous for and exaggerating a bit, no harm in it until they start believing in their own fantasies.

Aren't they called Xe Services now? Same company, new name after the mass shootings.

I always liked seeing the contractors rolling around in their black moon buggies with tires all over the sides.

[Jackmoves]

Aren't they called Xe Services now? Same company, new name after the mass shootings.

I think they've changed name a few times, managing to get really bad press is their moto. lol

[DockyWocky]

Aren't they called Xe Services now? Same company, new name after the mass shootings.

They were, they're onto a new name after that one too though. I believe they're currently called Academi Solutions or something.

[Deleted]

Aren't they called Xe Services now? Same company, new name after the mass shootings.

They splintered into a few groups all operating under one umbrella, Academi is one such company and I think you are correct with XE. They had no choice but to splinter, they caused a whole lot of shit, no idea why anyone would want employment with these morons.

[DockyWocky]

They splintered into a few groups all operating under one umbrella, Academi is one such company and I think you are correct with XE. They had no choice but to splinter, they caused a whole lot of shit, no idea why anyone would want employment with these morons.

Yeah, in general, I have a strong distrust of PMC's. The one's that were just stuck on embassy guard duty aren't a problem, it's when they go out and try to play cowboy that bothers me.

OT: Obviously not a MoH winner. If my research was correct, there was/has been only 1 Navy Cross (for a Marine) awarded for either Afghanistan or Iraq. So it's doubtful that this is your guy. It's possible that he received a Silver Star, as they isn't a listed database for them. But if that were the case, you would most likely be able to easily find a press snippet about it by googling the fellow.

[Mr Sloth]

I think the Salary is why someone would want to be employed by them. Also you know the guys who like playing cowboy and getting to go around taking lives without repercussions. PMC's are evil in my eyes anyway, but hey that's just like my opinion man.

[NoRest4Wicked]

I agree with googling. If he received a high profile award from the President it would likely have been in Marine Corps Times, Stars and Stripes or another military paper. Also, it's likely the MEF, Battalion or Company he was under would have posted pictures and a short snippet about it on their website. It should be pretty darn easy to find.

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I think the Salary is why someone would want to be employed by them. Also you know the guys who like playing cowboy and getting to go around taking lives without repercussions. PMC's are evil in my eyes anyway, but hey that's just like my opinion man.

The pay is pretty good, I know a lot of former Marines who are working for Lockheed Martin, L3 Stratis, Six3 Systems or Ratheon over in Afghanistan right now making bank.

[Mr Sloth]

Something tells me whatever he did is in a "I cannot tell" sort of way. Not a "I don't feel like telling" sort of way. So maybe whatever high award he got was kept on the hush hush. If not. Well google isn't helping me out here, which leads more to the fact he may be full of B.S. - Quite a viable answer hard to stick with because I have such an urge to find the truth and can't be sure if that is it until I confront him about it. All I know is the fellow military men I work with never call him out on anything and seem to have a respect for him even though some of them are much older and even served longer than him. I have so much conflicting information

I agree with googling. If he received a high profile award from the President it would likely have been in Marine Corps Times, Stars and Stripes or another military paper. Also, it's likely the MEF, Battalion or Company he was under would have posted pictures and a short snippet about it on their website. It should be pretty darn easy to find.

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The pay is pretty good, I know a lot of former Marines who are working for Lockheed Martin, L3 Stratis, Six3 Systems or Ratheon over in Afghanistan right now making bank.

I believe he said something like 250k a year. With an 8mo deployment and 4mo home cycle for 4yrs. Said he would join up as a Fireteam leader? Or something like that.

[NoRest4Wicked]

So you are telling me he was part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Abu_Kamal_raid ?

[Deleted]

I agree with googling. If he received a high profile award from the President it would likely have been in Marine Corps Times, Stars and Stripes or another military paper. Also, it's likely the MEF, Battalion or Company he was under would have posted pictures and a short snippet about it on their website. It should be pretty darn easy to find.

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I believe he said something like 250k a year. With an 8mo deployment and 4mo home cycle for 4yrs. Said he would join up as a Fireteam leader? Or something like that.

PMC's have fireteams? I find this hard to believe, since that is a term mostly used by aggressive combat arms, despite what people think legit PMC's are not out to seek and kill people.

[NoRest4Wicked]

Something tells me whatever he did is in a "I cannot tell" sort of way. Not a "I don't feel like telling" sort of way. So maybe whatever high award he got was kept on the hush hush. If not. Well google isn't helping me out here, which leads more to the fact he may be full of B.S. - Quite a viable answer hard to stick with because I have such an urge to find the truth and can't be sure if that is it until I confront him about it. All I know is the fellow military men I work with never call him out on anything and seem to have a respect for him even though some of them are much older and even served longer than him. I have so much conflicting information



I believe he said something like 250k a year. With an 8mo deployment and 4mo home cycle for 4yrs. Said he would join up as a Fireteam leader? Or something like that.

That's a lot of money, considering the influx of prior service members getting out and the draw down for Afghanistan. What was once a 180k 12 month deployment from other defense contractors is now going for 125k. Not saying that's how much a PMC would pay, I have never looked into it, nor will I.

[Jackmoves]

That's a lot of money, considering the influx of prior service members getting out and the draw down for Afghanistan. What was once a 180k 12 month deployment from other defense contractors is now going for 125k. Not saying that's how much a PMC would pay, I have never looked into it, nor will I.

Unless you higher cheap labour from poorer nations... which Blackwater among others did during the hight of the Contractor boom, they pocketed insane amount of money. They hired people from wealthier nations to of course.

[Mr Sloth]

Well I do know that blackwater has made the news more than once with war-crime level stunts of combat. Quick googling of Blackwater news history you can see that primarily they are used as a guard service protecting U.S. important civs going overseas but they do have assassinations under their belt I believe.

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I have also learned that when it comes to military if I can google it and I see something horrible pop up. Then there are things much much worse actually happening.

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Can't imagine even PMC's would go around shouting that they have fireteams ready to strike at will to the public eye.

[NoRest4Wicked]

Unless you higher cheap labour from poorer nations... which Blackwater among others did during the hight of the Contractor boom, they pocketed insane amount of money. They hired people from wealthier nations to of course.

Are you saying those Ugandans I saw everywhere in Iraq where part of Blackwater!? My god, I never thought to ask. Well, the only thing we ever said to each other was JUMBOOOOOO!!!.

[Jackmoves]

Well I do know that blackwater has made the news more than once with war-crime level stunts of combat. Quick googling of Blackwater news history you can see that primarily they are used as a guard service protecting U.S. important civs going overseas but they do have assassinations under their belt I believe.

They probably got most bad press after the nisour square massacre. Which was well... a massacre on iraqi civilians.

On October 13, 2007, the FBI reported that it had concluded that at least 14 of the 17 Iraqis who died in the square had been killed without cause.

On October 2, 2007 the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report stating that Blackwater USA guards have used deadly force weekly in Iraq and have inflicted "significant casualties and property damage." The report found that the guards fired their weapons an average of 1.4 times a week. The report further said that Blackwater reports that its forces fired first in over 80 percent of the cases.

Trigger happy contractors have contributed to making life harder for proper US military.

[DockyWocky]

Yeah, Blackwater and Triple Canopy were really bad about hiring basically 3rd world militants for their cheap security details. Ugandans/Ecuadorians were the most prevalent that I saw. They did (and perhaps still do) have more 'elite' teams actually made up of former operators and other wet work type people. But those were typically personal security details for State Department folks, and basically required a Ranger/SF Tab, or a CIA background.

That does seem like an obscene amount of money for his job. CIA/DIA/TF/JSOC type people wouldn't even necessarily make that starting out. I know some guys I used to work with actually did some of this work, and they started for considerably less than half of what this character is claiming he can make. It's very doubtful that he is working at an aluminum plant, instead of doing something like that. If he was actively being considered for a job like that, he could make a large amount of money as just a security consultant.

I looked into it some more Magic, and couldn't find anything about this guy. I don't think, but can't say conclusively, that he was ever awarded a Silver Star, and definitely not anything higher than that. The easy solution is just ask him to show you his DD214. It will list all his schools/awards on it.