Picture of the day

[bearhunter]

Syria, Ukraine, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Venezuela.....the list goes on. Wagner are growing FAST.

Far to fast and to well equipped to be private. Only governments can afford that type of build up.

Similar to some of the CIA sponsored units, they're told which contracts to take and usually for US interests, often just to create stress in certain areas that had valuable resources.

I hadn't realized that Canada sent "training units" into Mali. Interesting.

 

[recce]

something went terribly wrong here.

Bad things can happen if the barrel isn't checked after pulling into a hull down or prepared position to make sure it isn't fouled and you have crest clearance. Not removing the boresight causes headaches too.

 

[Canadian Sig]

Far to fast and to well equipped to be private. Only governments can afford that type of build up.

Similar to some of the CIA sponsored units, they're told which contracts to take and usually for US interests, often just to create stress in certain areas that had valuable resources.

I hadn't realized that Canada sent "training units" into Mali. Interesting.

CANSOF trains or trained troops in Mali, Niger, Belize, and Jamaica.

Also, Erik Price had that level of military might at the heights of Blackwater.

 

[steamy teabag]

CANSOF trains or trained troops in Mali, Niger, Belize, and Jamaica.

Also, Erik Price had that level of military might at the heights of Blackwater.

Ahh Belize, nice place to vacation for "retired" Canadians, almost as good as the north shore of Panama.

 

[Canadian Sig]

Ahh Belize, nice place to vacation for "retired" Canadians, almost as good as the north shore of Panama.

I fell in love with it there when we trained them. I was moving there in March 2019. We sold everything we owned and took only our 2 dogs and whatever fit in a 6x12 trailer. We made it to the US/Mexican border when Belize shut down. We had to turn around and come back to Canada....drove 10,000 kms to live an hour from where we used to.

 

[odsixer]

something went terribly wrong here.

pistol powder?

 

[bearhunter]

CANSOF trains or trained troops in Mali, Niger, Belize, and Jamaica.

Also, Erik Price had that level of military might at the heights of Blackwater.

Yup, but Erik Price had substantial underground funding from several governments around the world as well as access to equipment and operators that should have been way beyond his reach.

Blackwater? I've been out of touch for a while, not that I want it any other way.

Blackwater did a lot of exclusive work for the UK/France/Germany/ US and maybe even Canada. Their consultants have "Get out of jail free" cards all over Africa and South America.

Belize is beautiful and the people are great. Just to much sunlight for sensetive skin.

Not a joke, I suffered from sunstroke on several occaisions and really dislike what it does to me.

Enjoy it when you get there.

 

[XRCD011]

^ Prince not price. Blackwater trained Canadian MPs for Close Protection at Moyock NC...................so I heard.

 

[Buckmastr]

 

[AP]

Sunbathers watch Russian marines training for Navy Day, on a beach of the Neva River in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 24, 2008.

I think that should read:"Russian marines training for Navy Day watch sunbathers on a beach of the Neva River in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 24, 2008"

 

[steamy teabag]

Yup, but Erik Price had substantial underground funding from several governments around the world as well as access to equipment and operators that should have been way beyond his reach.

Blackwater? I've been out of touch for a while, not that I want it any other way.

Blackwater did a lot of exclusive work for the UK/France/Germany/ US and maybe even Canada. Their consultants have "Get out of jail free" cards all over Africa and South America.

Belize is beautiful and the people are great. Just to much sunlight for sensetive skin.

Not a joke, I suffered from sunstroke on several occaisions and really dislike what it does to me.

Enjoy it when you get there.

BW equipped a couple of planes in Africa for AA and AG and flew them on contract from what I recall. Mercs, good money working for alphabet organizations but spending 30 days in a Turkish prison isn't fun or so I'm told.

 

[bearhunter]

BW equipped a couple of planes in Africa for AA and AG and flew them on contract from what I recall. Mercs, good money working for alphabet organizations but spending 30 days in a Turkish prison isn't fun or so I'm told.

It depends on what their mission was and who sent them.

Get out of jail free cards weren't always honored, especially by the recipients of the action.

As for high pay?????????? Most mercs I've known could easily have done better in a different line of work.

It takes a certain frame of mind to live that lifestyle and often an addiction to the adrenaline rushes and sometimes outright perversions.

Let us not forget the odd treasure inadvertantly stumbled across and squirreld away.

 

[bearhunter]

I stand corrected, it's been awhile.

 

[Canadian Sig]

^ Prince not price. Blackwater trained Canadian MPs for Close Protection at Moyock NC...................so I heard.

They did. CANSOF also trained there a lot over the years. I spent some time in Moyock. Cheap dip, cheap gun parts and great BBQ.

 

[Canadian Sig]

It depends on what their mission was and who sent them.

Get out of jail free cards weren't always honored, especially by the recipients of the action.

As for high pay?????????? Most mercs I've known could easily have done better in a different line of work.

It takes a certain frame of mind to live that lifestyle and often an addiction to the adrenaline rushes and sometimes outright perversions.

Let us not forget the odd treasure inadvertantly stumbled across and squirreld away.

I was offered work as a PMC on a number of occasions. It was tempting sometimes....but in the end my mental health was more important (or so my wife told me).

 

[CV32]

Looks like a Turkish M60T Sabra, perhaps from the Syrian border region.

 

[bearhunter]

I was offered work as a PMC on a number of occasions. It was tempting sometimes....but in the end my mental health was more important (or so my wife told me).

Sounds to me like you kept your head straight and your wife, bless her soul, likely helped with that.

Still, anyone that's been there and done that has their own ghosts, they need to get comfortable with.

I've found with some of my now long gone companions that the more unstable they were at the beginning, the less able they were to come to a comfortable point with the ghosts or even the whole scenario.

Good on you for making up your mind the right way, before going down the blurred road.

I guess the term PMC is now the politically correct abreviation of Mercenary???

I used to just hire out as a Defensive Consultant. Not overyly imaginative, but with some of the folks I dealt with, any more than that would have gone over their heads.

Private Military Contactor/Consultant???

 

[Canadian Sig]

Private Military Contractor.

Merc went out when Soldier of Fortune magazine folded.

 

[bearhunter]

Private Military Contractor.

Merc went out when Soldier of Fortune magazine folded.

Well, my last contract was long before that happened in 76 and I kept out of it after that.

Came out of Brazil with enough rough emeralds, diamonds and semi precious stones to tide me over, until I felt like I could enter the workforce and behave in a reasonably normal, for the time, manner. I still have some of the semi precious stones sitting on a display shelf in my living room. One has been cut for a male ring, but never mounted. They all have a memory.

SOF was a last resort to find employment.

Usually hiring recruitments came up on different venues, mostly in European papers and the odd South American daily papers back then. We didn't have the internet. There were a couple back in the early 70s in Montreal papers and one notable ad in the old Vancouver Sun back in 78 by Col Foster, out of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). I heard he got shut down during the middle of his first day.

 

[Buckmastr]

“The half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patience I have ever seen.”

Tom Lea served an an artist and War Correspondent for LIFE Magazine through most of World War II. He is most famous for his time in the Pacific in 1944 in combat with the United States 1st Marine Division during the invasion of Peleliu.

“My work there consisted of trying to keep from getting killed and trying to memorize what I saw and felt.”
Lea created this painting, entitled “The Price”, from personal experience after landing under fire at Peleliu. In his own words:

“I fell flat on my face just as I heard the whishhh of a mortar I knew was too close. A red flash stabbed at my eyeballs. About fifteen yards away, on the upper edge of the beach, it smashed down four men from our boat. One figure seemed to fly to pieces. With terrible clarity I saw the head and one leg sail into the air.
I got up… ran a few steps, and fell into a small hole as another mortar burst threw dirt on me. Lying there in terror looking longingly up the slope for better cover, I saw a wounded man near me, staggering in the direction of the LVTs (Landing Vehicle - Tracked). His face was half bloody pulp and the mangled shreds of what was left of an arm hung down like a stick, as he bent over in his stumbling, shock-crazy walk. The half of his face that was still human had the most terrifying look of abject patience I have ever seen. He fell behind me, in a red puddle on the white sand.
It was established later that the invasion of Peleliu as a stepping stone to the invasion of the Philippines had not been necessary - Gen. MacArthur had already bypassed the Palaus and landed at Leyte in the Philippines.”

More than 1,400 Americans died at Peleliu, and another 6,500 were wounded. Virtually all the 11,000 Japanese soldiers on the island were killed.