January 7, 2010 • 29 mins
Mercenaries are soldiers of fortune who fight in wars and conflicts for profit. Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the fascinating history of mercenaries past and present in this episode of Stuff You Should Know.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always a
smiling Chuck Bryant. I'm smiling. How are you doing, Chuck?
(00:22):
I feel like I was just whisked in here, like
Elvis or something. You were you like Krusty the clown
when he comes in to do the recording for a
Crusty Doll? Right you remember? Yeah again? Hey, Hey, that's
my best. Yeah. So Chuck came in on a sick day,
on a wing and a prayer. I just walked in. Yeah,
traffic is bad, it's nasty out, raining, raining, cold, and
(00:45):
we're going to talk about something else that is cold. Hey,
nice mercenaries, Yeah, Chuck, we've talked about Delta Force before. Remember,
we had to keep our composure sure, because we were
tittering and excited and all that. Yes, you're taken to
task a little bit by liking violence that's not necessarily
going to happen in this one. I have a feeling mercenaries,
(01:08):
which are as I think everybody knows our soldiers for
hire are pretty much universally hated by everybody. Yeah, okay,
I didn't get that. Yeah, nobody likes a mercenary. One
of the reasons why is because when you go to war,
because people go to war because somebody is getting pushed
around by some other big jerk country or um, you know,
(01:30):
there's some dictator that should be toppler. It's ideological on
the suite, on the surface, and that's what attracts you know,
brave men and women, braver people than us much who
go into service not for money, but because they want
to protect democracy or freedom or what have you. Mercenaries
don't do that. They go and say, uh, this country
(01:53):
is paying a lot right now for this war that
they're in, and I'm gonna go kill for them. Sure
for money, I'm killing for money. They're pretty much man. Yeah,
I didn't realize that the fascinating history of the mercenary
until I read this. No, and William Harris, by the way,
did a hum dinger of a job. Job. Yeah, So, Chuck,
let's talk about mercenaries. Where did they come from? Well, Josh,
(02:13):
the earliest account that we know of is about twenty
four hundred years ago when uh Persian prince in general
Cyrus the Younger, which I like that Cyrus the Younger,
not to be confused with Cyrus the elderly guy, right,
the bald Uh he hired the ten thousand, which was
an army of Greek mercenaries, to seize the throne in Persia, right,
(02:34):
and what a sarces? Yeah, and I'm not sure, but
I've seen the movie three hundred, so I bet the
ten thousand were pretty tough. Yeah, And I was wondering,
are the three hundred and the ten thousand related? Are
the three hundred the remains of the decimated ten thousand?
If so, they're tough dudes. They were tough dudes. That
was a great movie. That's stupid disfigured guy gave him up? Yeah,
(02:56):
and oh the abs did you know? In that movie?
They they wanted to recreate what these guys probably looked like.
So when they were training, they didn't use any equipment.
They did things like roll tires up hills, did like
real like earthy um, like the Strongman competition very much.
It carried like concrete beer kegs and stuff, right, and
(03:18):
like pickup tractor trailers like the beer cakes what a
waste of beer. Seriously. So yeah, so that was back
in what four oh one BC, right, and since then
we've pretty much used mercenaries almost uninterrupted. Yeah, they made
a pretty big splash, I guess you could say in
(03:40):
the Hundred Years War, which lasted longer than a hundred years,
But they did. But I mean, they're not gonna say,
what the hundred and sixteen year War that doesn't have
the same ring between the English and the French from
s to fourteen fifty three. Well, that's the problem with
the long War is that your armies are going to
be decimated precisely, so you have to turn to the
(04:01):
you know, the paid for higher guys. Well, not only that,
the standing political army didn't really appear until I think
the seventeenth century. So back back in this time, all
these disparate landowning earls and dukes and princes, Um, they
had their own private armies and they were all for pay.
But um a lot of them were drawn from their
(04:23):
own countrymen. But yeah, you make an excellent point. When
you have a hundred year war, you're gonna go through
a lot of your countrymen. That's just kind of one
of the aspects of war. So yeah. Um. In the
Hundred Year War, a guy named Edward of Woodstock who's
known as the Black Prince, which, by the way, from
now on, I want you to call me the Black Prince.
I was gonna call you Josh of Woodstock. Not for
(04:43):
many years, buddy. Um. He made use of mercenaries in
what how do you pronounce this, chuck, I'm gonna go
with cheval sha yes, which basically means burned, pillage, loot
and rape. Yes, And that's our war. I think fans
of Blazing Saddles might know that better as the number six.
That was where they go riding into town whipping in
(05:05):
a wamping every living thing. Yeah, yeah, that's what they
say in Blazing Saddles. Then they also had a number
six dance later on, which was a really great line dance.
Maybe so, probably not. I think it's a little more
bloody and horrifying. Yeah. Um. And then the the Hundred
Years War ends, and I guess the use of mercenaries
kind of dried up for a little while, right, Yeah,
(05:27):
So my earlier comment about them being used uninterrupted was
totally baseless. Well, I bet you there were some mercenaries
used here and there, just not as widely. Right, Let's
talk about some famous mercenaries there, Chuck, Okay, like the
Swiss Guard. I think that's pretty tough. Yeah. They made
the point in here. William made the point in here
that sometimes a soldier would get a specialty, a combat specialty,
(05:50):
so they would be sought out because of a particular
war or a battle they might be in. And the
Swiss Guard was such because they were masters of the pike. Right,
and they're still around. There's a pretty cool photo of them, um,
and they are holding their pikes and they look Yeah,
it's it's it's pretty awesome. It sounds like a euphemism.
They're holding their pikes. Yeah, I'm not gonna go there.
(06:11):
What about the other one? You speak German? I found
out Chuck speaks Germans and Chuck, how do you pronounce
this one? And you're gonna ask this and I practiced it.
I'm gonna go with lan. Okay, that's better than what
I was gonna And you know I do speak German,
but that's a really tough one. Even if you are German,
I'm gonna can you can you say say hello to
(06:33):
my little friends Zach to mankind and freunden. Yeah, checks
of Beverly Hills Chuawa fame by the way. So yes,
those German soldiers actually also used the pike, and but
they also used guns, which was kind of new in
the fifteenth and sixteenth century, right, muskets, arquebus, arquebus. Yeah,
so those guys made a pretty big impression. One of
(06:55):
the reasons why they were I guess heavily sought after
was because unlike the Swiss Guard, they I mean they
specialized in different weapons, but they had like different aspects
of their companies, Like you know, somebody would use the
must get, somebody else would use a pike, somebody else
would use a sword. So they were like everything you
needed all in one right. And actually, did you know that, um,
(07:18):
in the Revolutionary War there were tons and tons of mercenaries,
not until this and I'm surprised I have not made
a film about it yet because William and he even
has this uh sourced said that during the Revolutionary War
Americans probably fought more Germans than they did English British.
Is that true? Is that possible? I could see that. Yeah,
(07:40):
it's crazy. You never hear about that. And uh, the
one of those um. One of those mercenaries, German mercenaries,
I think they're called hessians um, turned out to be
the headless Horseman. Oh yeah, yeah, well they could Bud.
It could Bud's foe. Oh yeah, that's right, sorry, it
could was the he was the nerve act manager. So yeah. One,
(08:01):
Like we said, standing armies kind of became popular in
the sixteenth century and never really the popularity never waned much,
unlike the twist um they so you know, political standing
armies have been around for a while, right, you mean
the dance a twists um. So as a result, mercenaries
have kind of fallen to the wayside until um, World
(08:26):
War two, Yeah, which kind of changed everything and a
lot of a lot of World War two was a
probably the most landmark event in the last I don't know,
since the Magna Carta. Maybe everything changed after that. You know,
Germans got volunteers actually, so technically they weren't mercenaries. We'll
go over in a minute what the Geneva Convention actually
(08:48):
says as a mercenary, but I think the Germans actually
had volunteers from other country but Fry will just call
them free willie free willies. So yeah, was in World
War Two. Actually they were um. Yeah, and since they
were volunteers and they weren't paid, they weren't technically mercenaries,
but they fulfill a lot of the other stuff, a
(09:08):
lot of the other criteria. Um. So then yeah, after
World War Two, UM, part of the Geneva Convention, this
agreement among all the warring nations and the allies on
the Rules of War UM, mercenaries and their use and
their definition is very much addressed, right, Yes, in the
first Protocol of nineteen seventy seven. Should we go with
(09:31):
the criteria. Yes. In order to be considered a mercenary, Josh,
you must be specially recruited to take part in the conflict,
but not a member of the armed forces of the
state that recruited you. Right, that's kind of a big one.
Like the German volunteers and World War Two, they're from
other countries. Exactly. You need to actively engage in hostilities, otherwise,
I guess you probably wouldn't be very good mercenary. If not,
(09:53):
you're just some guy standing on the sideline. Exactly. Uh,
you were motivated by private gain and your p its
substantially more than the ordinary armed forces of that state.
Soldier of fortune. Yeah, we'll get into that too, though
it's not quite as lucrative when you factor in some
other things. You know, I was kind of surprised about that.
And um, what else is that the last one? Yeah, no, Chuck,
(10:15):
that pretty much does wrap it up. I think you
covered all the big points, um. And even earlier than that,
mercenaries were kind of put on the fringes um, right
after World War Two when the original Geneva Convention was established,
because they created the definition for a lawful combatant. Yes,
basically what we think of as a soldier, somebody who
belongs to a nation that's important to that's a war right,
(10:37):
because if you're a lawful combatant, Um, you can engage
in offensive conflict, yeah, with with people in other countries.
You protect people, and if you're caught, you are expected
to be treated as a prisoner of war. If you're
a mercenary, you're way far out there on the edge. Yeah,
you're kind of on your own, like you can be
(10:57):
tried for murder and half towards whatever. Um. And remember
I think in September two thousand seven, Blackwater, very very
famous UM outfit. I thot you're talking about the DeBie
brother song No black Water. No, No, we're not talking
about that one different guys. Um, yeah, you know Blackwater? Right.
(11:18):
Actually I responded to someone asked to do something on
black Water, and I responded, yeah, maybe we should do
one of the Dubie Brothers as a whole. And he
didn't get the joke at all. He wrote back and said, no,
that's weird that you thought that I was really talking
about black Water. Well that's weird you didn't get the joke, right, Yeah,
Um you remember. Okay, so you are aware of black Water? Okay.
(11:39):
And they I think that right after this they changed
their name to Blackwater Worldwide and now there's z x E. Yeah,
they keep changing their name with very horrible travesty. But um,
you know a lot of people call them them mercenaries.
They're now called private military contractors, but basically they supply
soldiers of fortune, right, yeah, for secure mainly. And um
(12:02):
that we remember in two thousand seven there was this
horrible thing that went down in Baghdad where I think
seventeen Iraqi civilians were killed. Um when when black Water
um contractors opened fire, Yeah, got real trigger happy, and
I think they found that fourteen of those deaths were unjustified. Yeah,
(12:22):
they broke the deadly forced rules, right, and Iraq was
chomping at the bit to prosecute these guys. And I
believe the US stepped in and protected them, but I
mean they it was very possible for them to be
prosecuted because they weren't lawful combatants. Well, the US uses
a lot of these UH contractors, as it turns out,
because I saw the U n Pastor resolution in the
(12:43):
late eighties outlawing this kind of mercenary, but the US
conveniently has still not signed that document because what we
want to hire the mercenaries because they What happened is,
and William makes a great point, is with UH the
different rules of warfare. Now you have lots of weapons
systems and UM soldiers that are trained to man these
systems and operate these systems. So what happens is they're
(13:05):
spread a little thin with UM some of these day
to day duties like UH security of like high ranking
civil servants, that kind of thing, right, which the military
would usually take care of. Right. UM. Anytime you see
hummed cars, I you'll see a couple of white guys
who wear Oakley sunglasses and have beards with um, I
(13:26):
guess uh Heckler and cock um guns. And they are
I think former Delta Force, but now they work for Z.
They're not smiling, no, but they provide security. And they
can do that lawfully. You can provide security. You can
provide um a defensive security where you're not engaging in
any offense whatsoever. Um supposedly, right, and then you're a
(13:51):
lawful or your your a mercenary under the Geneva Convention,
the guidelines and the protocol and all that. Right, I
gotta staff for you. Okay. It's said that the US
likes to use these these soldiers of fortune. There's uh,
there's no hard numbers, but they suggest that more than
a hundred and eighty thousand of these contractors are working
in Iraq alone, and that all together, all over the world,
(14:14):
that they outnumber the United States military in total. Yeah,
and we've spent about a hundred billion dollars in the
Iraq war on these mercenaries, which I think something like
a quarter or a third of the total that we
had spent. Yeah, when this article was written, I think
in late two thousand and eight, right, which of course
is smaller now. So Chuck. You know, Africa has been
(14:37):
a big site for mercenaries and it still continues to be.
That's what I hear. There's pretty much anytime there's a revolution,
a coup attempt, something like that, and anybody has some cash,
they hire outside mercenaries, right yeah. Uh. And there's a
guy named Simon man Do you remember this, Yeah, back
in two thousand four. In March two thousand four, man
Um was the head of two companies UM that were
(15:01):
private military companies, contractors, but basically mercenary outfits. Right, yeah,
sand Line International. And I love the name of this one,
Executive outcomes, right. I don't know what that means, yeah,
but it sounds so shady. Yeah, it does. Executive Like
you can just see like their their company headquarters, executive outcome.
It's like one of those offices that you wander into
(15:23):
to ask, like to use the bathroom, and they never like,
what is this place? What do you guys do here?
And you just escorted out. When you wake up and
on the park bench and take a lump on your head,
you have like ink on your fingers. Right, So well,
man Um in March two thousand four led a group
um of mercenaries from South Africa and I guess his
(15:43):
company um to Equatorial Guinea and he didn't make it.
He got picked up in Zimbabwe at they were going
to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. UM the president
Teyodoro Obang A right nice and uh they got picked
up and held and apparently he was just recently pardoned
(16:04):
by President Obang and released in November. UM and he's
out and he is naming names. The story that he
tells now he's back in Great Britain is that Mark Thatcher,
Sir Mark Thatcher, whose last name he might recognize. His
mom was the PM for a while UM and as
some other people from around the world had an interest
(16:25):
in the oil fields at Equatorial Guinea and hired allegedly
hired time and man to overthrow the government so they
could move in uh and get these oil revenues or
control these oil fields. And he was condemned pretty roundly.
Man was but he was fully pardoned by Obang. He was. Yeah,
it was in prison for five and a half years,
but he did have to shut down executive outcomes apparently, right. Yeah,
(16:48):
and sand Lie, Yeah, they're they're probably opened up under
another name. Though probably probably not. But if you think
about thinking about how people think of Blackwater or UM.
You know, Simon Man, no one cared. He was in
prison for five and a half years, like and the
reason why is because he was a soldier of fortune.
These are mercenaries, you know, and people just don't think
(17:09):
of them very highly. True. You can we name some
of these other companies? Yeah, sure, just because I thought
it was kind of funny some of them. And if
I had a mercenary company, I don't know what I
would name it, but it would probably not be the
Olive group that was one of them. Yeah, And triple canopy,
that's that's probably a military term. And what's another goal
(17:30):
on this? One's good kroll k R O L L Government. Yeah,
that probably stands for something. UM. The one that got
that I think stands out above all the rest is
Global risk Strategies. I can see us if you go
to Guatemala calling on Global Risk Strategies to come get
us out. You know, I'd love to have that number. Actually,
(17:53):
maybe we should look that up. So, Chuck, let's talk
about another famous group of mercenaries that aren't necessarily and
a look down upon UM. The French Foreign Legion. You know,
the guys with the white Caps with the with them.
Do you remember in the eighties, like when did you
break dance? No? Do you remember those hats though? They
(18:16):
were like baseball caps, but then they had the flapping
back yeah, yeah, yeah, they were kind of based on
the engineers hats and what's up with that? Who knows?
Weird time. They're always leading the way fashion forward. Alright,
So these guys with the white Caps, right, yes, the
French Legion are technically you could call them mercenaries, although
(18:37):
they they can't eventually gain French citizenship through joining the
Foreign leagus right after three years and they have to
sign up for five year tour of duty, five year contract.
And the French Foreign Legion was established in eighteen thirty
one because when the French Revolution happened in July of
eighteen thirty apparently this opened the floodgates for people I
(18:57):
guess seeking their fortune in the newly free France for
French republic Um. And so the French said, well, you
know what, let's put all these ragamuffins and no good
knicks to good use, and they started the French Foreign Legions.
So if you came in if you wanted to become
a Frenchman. Uh, and I guess you're an able bodied man.
They said, sure, you can become a friendman. Sign up
(19:18):
five years, we'll put you in the foreign legion. After
three years you can become a citizen. After the fifth
year you can come back and do whatever you like.
And many were no good knicks actually in the early days.
And still it's Mike joining the circus or you know,
sometimes we have some no good knicks that joined up
in the army at eighteen because they're you know, parole
(19:40):
officer says that might be a good move for him,
and the army will shape them up and turn them
into good citizens hopefully or vengeance killers. So can we
talk more about the legionnaires. I think we should. Yeah, okay, Well,
they get um recruited and they get a proof of
preselection and that means you get a little medical check
(20:02):
up and what they call a quote confirmation of motivation. Right,
they want to make actually do want to do this?
Or you're aware that you're signing up for five years
to go be in the military, right, And once you
pass through that stage, you go to another set of
like more thorough questioning and medical uh checkups, and then
you go to basic training for fifteen weeks a little
(20:23):
country town in the south of France. And at the
end of that they introduce you to your you know,
your comrades and your military life. They teach you French
ideal you can speak a little French at the end
of this. And then at the end you get your
cape blanc, which is that goofy looking white at right,
And it isn't it? It is? And it kind of
stands out it's not very practical. No, and uh, there's
(20:44):
a picture of a modern foreign legionnaire, French foreign legionnaire,
and he does he's wearing like a beret and camo
and all that stuff. So I think it's kind of
like their dress. Sure thing. Um, but so okay, so
you have gone through basic training, you're a legionnaire now. Um,
apparently there's eight thousand of them at any given point
in time right now. They hail from a hundred and
(21:06):
thirty six different countries, strangely including France itself. How does
that work? I don't know. We'll have to find out. Yeah. Um,
so the uh, they after you get through basic training
and you're you're now a legionnaire. They send you to
I guess one of eleven regiments all over the world,
Chad Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, all over the place, some places
(21:27):
you don't really want to be. I would imagine you
want to get a Chad. No, I got another staff
for you. Eighteen thirty one, Josh. Since then, more than
thirty five thousand legionnaires have been killed in combat. Right,
it's a lot. Yeah. I think part of the reason
we mentioned that legionnaires aren't necessarily looked down upon, even
though they are pretty much a mercenary group, because they
(21:49):
do get paid and they don't they're not doing it
for ideology. But I think the fact that you sign
up for five years, you can attain citizenship through this,
and you're serving a specific nation kind of ads like
kind of a military tinge to it, you know what
I mean. Well, they're no more as soldiers instead of contractors.
Let's talk about the contractors there, chuck. Yeah, these guys
(22:10):
are typically ex military or former police officers. Um, the
batter the better, you know, like Green Berets as Delta Force.
This is who you want in your PMC. Yeah, Like
Simon Mann was a x S a S guy. Right,
So these these dudes are brought in, they are paid
(22:31):
UM it says six hundred, seven hundred dollars a day,
sometimes up to a thousand dollars a day for their work.
Not bad, it's substantial. But what we're saying earlier is,
and this is kind of funny, is they typically don't
get benefits, which surprised me. I thought any company would
want to get a benefit pay together. But no, you
can't get a break as e mercencey risk. So you
(22:51):
gotta pay for your own benefits. You have to cover
your own taxes and all that. Yeah, and how much
is life insurance if you're a soldier of fortune? I
have no idea, but it's astronomical. So at the end
of the day, once you take out all the money
for all those things and for you know, milk and sugar,
they're probably not paid a whole lot more than a
regular military personnel. Probably not maybe who I think if
(23:15):
you went to work for Blackwater something, you can probably
make a pretty decent amount of cash. Um. There's some
other things that UM private military companies and contractors do
that aren't necessarily war based, and there are actually kind
of cool. Um, there is a group that train UH
(23:36):
guides who combat poachers in the Congo um to prevent
the extinction of things like the black rhino. That's pretty cool.
Private security for corporations obviously, when de Beers is poking
around Africa, and Exxon and VP or the Beers definitely
needs the security. They're traveling around the country in hostile areas,
(23:56):
so they need the best of the best. And like
you said, um, guarding high risk dignitaries like common cars,
eye that kind of thing. Um. And then apparently they
also are used in counter drug operations. Yeah. I didn't
realize that. I didn't either. I mean, hey, the A
can't do it all right, Yeah, good point. Yeah, So
especially now in the use of private military contractors really
(24:20):
exploded in the nineties and they become, like you said,
so far entrenched in our military. That is, there's almost
no separating and we become so dependent on them. And
they also don't necessarily engage exclusively in um, you know,
gun toting missions, like they could cook they the same
(24:40):
company can can sing, cooks, drivers, like all all this
stuff that frees up our soldiers. Yeah. I didn't even
think about that. But there are some risks, some definite
downsides to using mercenaries, right, Yeah, I would say that
the one that stood out to me the most is
what you really want in a situation like war is
loyalty above all out, definitely, And when you're hiring a
(25:01):
mercenary there after the buck and they're not necessarily even
from your country, so you can't really count on that nationalism, right,
that ideology that motivates you to go, you know kill. Yeah,
that's that's the biggest issue. I would say. There's actually
a famous story from the fourteenth century about the Almo Gavaris. Yeah, Almogavaris. Yeah,
that's good. The how you say, almogo veris finish frontiersman, Right,
(25:26):
Some Byzantine leaders hired these guys to defend uh Byzantium
right against the Turks. Yeah, and they did successfully, and
then they turned on the Byzantines and um basically just
walloped them, did a what number six, number six, number
six on them for the next two years, So I
didn't work out too well. Yeah, you're the the very
(25:48):
people you hire to defend. You can say, you know what,
let's um, let's just go ahead and take everything you
got afterward, you know, it's much like hiring a hit man. Ah. Yeah,
I really really trained former mill terry hit man. Right. Um.
There's also uh that if you're in a military detachment,
a standing military detachment, right, political army. Um, there's a
(26:11):
lot of like you said, loyalty to the state, but
there's also a lot of um, interpersonal loyalty among soldiers
that doesn't necessarily happen with um with mercenaries, So there
can be a communication breakdown. They're not sharing intelligence, that
kind of imagine. They look out for each other. And
that's about it, right and whoever, probably they were hired
to protect specifically. But all bets are off at the
(26:33):
end of the day when you got a mercenary. I
think that's pretty much the key takeaway here, Chuck. All
bets are off when buddy that was that that's in
this in the fine print when you write that initial contract, Chuck.
We talked about this article. I think we covered most
of it, but there's a bunch more information that we
(26:54):
didn't get in this fine article by William Harris. And
if you want to learn more about mercenaries is type
that war into the handy search bar at how stuff
works dot com, which leads us, of course, to listener mail. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this one from Anya from Boston, just
simple and this is about a near death experience. And
(27:16):
we we got a few of these, but I liked
Anya's just listen to your podcast on inde ease if
you couldn't tell from the subject. I had one that
I find interesting. I had one myself. I can't remember it,
but my mom told me what I said about it.
At the time, I was three years old and was
stick in the hospital. I can't remember why now, but
my lungs were mostly solid. Not a good way to
(27:37):
be born. Or I guess, yeah, she had the people
one that way. It's like breathing through butter. Yeah. Uh.
Suddenly she flatlined and she lived through it, and she
woke up. Her mom said she had a dream, or
that the girl had a dream where I was standing
at the entrance to the hospital and a big yellow
school bus pulled up. There was no driver, and when
(27:57):
I tried to get on the bus, a little ball
girl about a year older than me told me I
could not get on the bus because I was too young.
Just a note. I had no idea of what even
a school bus was at this point in time, because
I've been living in England, so that is my near
death experience. She tried to board. It sounds like a
bus to heaven, and the little gatekeeper said you're too young,
You're not ready to go, so go back. She goent back.
(28:20):
So look out for bald school girls. You know you're
dead when you encounter one of those. And that's one
from Boston. Well, thanks a lot, and yeah, we did
get a lot of pretty cool emails. Thanks to everybody
who sent in and shared their near death experience with us.
Somewhere just off the charts chilling indeed. Yeah. Um, if
you have any kind of story you want to share
(28:41):
with Chucker I. If you are a soldier of fortune,
somebody for hire. Uh, if you are a line cook
in a chain restaurant, we want to hear from you.
Send us an email to stuff Podcasts at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(29:02):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Want more
how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house
stuff works dot com home page. H Brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always a
smiling Chuck Bryant. I'm smiling. How are you doing, Chuck?
(00:22):
I feel like I was just whisked in here, like
Elvis or something. You were you like Krusty the clown
when he comes in to do the recording for a
Crusty Doll? Right you remember? Yeah again? Hey, Hey, that's
my best. Yeah. So Chuck came in on a sick day,
on a wing and a prayer. I just walked in. Yeah,
traffic is bad, it's nasty out, raining, raining, cold, and
(00:45):
we're going to talk about something else that is cold. Hey,
nice mercenaries, Yeah, Chuck, we've talked about Delta Force before. Remember,
we had to keep our composure sure, because we were
tittering and excited and all that. Yes, you're taken to
task a little bit by liking violence that's not necessarily
going to happen in this one. I have a feeling mercenaries,
(01:08):
which are as I think everybody knows our soldiers for
hire are pretty much universally hated by everybody. Yeah, okay,
I didn't get that. Yeah, nobody likes a mercenary. One
of the reasons why is because when you go to war,
because people go to war because somebody is getting pushed
around by some other big jerk country or um, you know,
(01:30):
there's some dictator that should be toppler. It's ideological on
the suite, on the surface, and that's what attracts you know,
brave men and women, braver people than us much who
go into service not for money, but because they want
to protect democracy or freedom or what have you. Mercenaries
don't do that. They go and say, uh, this country
(01:53):
is paying a lot right now for this war that
they're in, and I'm gonna go kill for them. Sure
for money, I'm killing for money. They're pretty much man. Yeah,
I didn't realize that the fascinating history of the mercenary
until I read this. No, and William Harris, by the way,
did a hum dinger of a job. Job. Yeah, So, Chuck,
let's talk about mercenaries. Where did they come from? Well, Josh,
(02:13):
the earliest account that we know of is about twenty
four hundred years ago when uh Persian prince in general
Cyrus the Younger, which I like that Cyrus the Younger,
not to be confused with Cyrus the elderly guy, right,
the bald Uh he hired the ten thousand, which was
an army of Greek mercenaries, to seize the throne in Persia, right,
(02:34):
and what a sarces? Yeah, and I'm not sure, but
I've seen the movie three hundred, so I bet the
ten thousand were pretty tough. Yeah, And I was wondering,
are the three hundred and the ten thousand related? Are
the three hundred the remains of the decimated ten thousand?
If so, they're tough dudes. They were tough dudes. That
was a great movie. That's stupid disfigured guy gave him up? Yeah,
(02:56):
and oh the abs did you know? In that movie?
They they wanted to recreate what these guys probably looked like.
So when they were training, they didn't use any equipment.
They did things like roll tires up hills, did like
real like earthy um, like the Strongman competition very much.
It carried like concrete beer kegs and stuff, right, and
(03:18):
like pickup tractor trailers like the beer cakes what a
waste of beer. Seriously. So yeah, so that was back
in what four oh one BC, right, and since then
we've pretty much used mercenaries almost uninterrupted. Yeah, they made
a pretty big splash, I guess you could say in
(03:40):
the Hundred Years War, which lasted longer than a hundred years,
But they did. But I mean, they're not gonna say,
what the hundred and sixteen year War that doesn't have
the same ring between the English and the French from
s to fourteen fifty three. Well, that's the problem with
the long War is that your armies are going to
be decimated precisely, so you have to turn to the
(04:01):
you know, the paid for higher guys. Well, not only that,
the standing political army didn't really appear until I think
the seventeenth century. So back back in this time, all
these disparate landowning earls and dukes and princes, Um, they
had their own private armies and they were all for pay.
But um a lot of them were drawn from their
(04:23):
own countrymen. But yeah, you make an excellent point. When
you have a hundred year war, you're gonna go through
a lot of your countrymen. That's just kind of one
of the aspects of war. So yeah. Um. In the
Hundred Year War, a guy named Edward of Woodstock who's
known as the Black Prince, which, by the way, from
now on, I want you to call me the Black Prince.
I was gonna call you Josh of Woodstock. Not for
(04:43):
many years, buddy. Um. He made use of mercenaries in
what how do you pronounce this, chuck, I'm gonna go
with cheval sha yes, which basically means burned, pillage, loot
and rape. Yes, And that's our war. I think fans
of Blazing Saddles might know that better as the number six.
That was where they go riding into town whipping in
(05:05):
a wamping every living thing. Yeah, yeah, that's what they
say in Blazing Saddles. Then they also had a number
six dance later on, which was a really great line dance.
Maybe so, probably not. I think it's a little more
bloody and horrifying. Yeah. Um. And then the the Hundred
Years War ends, and I guess the use of mercenaries
kind of dried up for a little while, right, Yeah,
(05:27):
So my earlier comment about them being used uninterrupted was
totally baseless. Well, I bet you there were some mercenaries
used here and there, just not as widely. Right, Let's
talk about some famous mercenaries there, Chuck, Okay, like the
Swiss Guard. I think that's pretty tough. Yeah. They made
the point in here. William made the point in here
that sometimes a soldier would get a specialty, a combat specialty,
(05:50):
so they would be sought out because of a particular
war or a battle they might be in. And the
Swiss Guard was such because they were masters of the pike. Right,
and they're still around. There's a pretty cool photo of them, um,
and they are holding their pikes and they look Yeah,
it's it's it's pretty awesome. It sounds like a euphemism.
They're holding their pikes. Yeah, I'm not gonna go there.
(06:11):
What about the other one? You speak German? I found
out Chuck speaks Germans and Chuck, how do you pronounce
this one? And you're gonna ask this and I practiced it.
I'm gonna go with lan. Okay, that's better than what
I was gonna And you know I do speak German,
but that's a really tough one. Even if you are German,
I'm gonna can you can you say say hello to
(06:33):
my little friends Zach to mankind and freunden. Yeah, checks
of Beverly Hills Chuawa fame by the way. So yes,
those German soldiers actually also used the pike, and but
they also used guns, which was kind of new in
the fifteenth and sixteenth century, right, muskets, arquebus, arquebus. Yeah,
so those guys made a pretty big impression. One of
(06:55):
the reasons why they were I guess heavily sought after
was because unlike the Swiss Guard, they I mean they
specialized in different weapons, but they had like different aspects
of their companies, Like you know, somebody would use the
must get, somebody else would use a pike, somebody else
would use a sword. So they were like everything you
needed all in one right. And actually, did you know that, um,
(07:18):
in the Revolutionary War there were tons and tons of mercenaries,
not until this and I'm surprised I have not made
a film about it yet because William and he even
has this uh sourced said that during the Revolutionary War
Americans probably fought more Germans than they did English British.
Is that true? Is that possible? I could see that. Yeah,
(07:40):
it's crazy. You never hear about that. And uh, the
one of those um. One of those mercenaries, German mercenaries,
I think they're called hessians um, turned out to be
the headless Horseman. Oh yeah, yeah, well they could Bud.
It could Bud's foe. Oh yeah, that's right, sorry, it
could was the he was the nerve act manager. So yeah. One,
(08:01):
Like we said, standing armies kind of became popular in
the sixteenth century and never really the popularity never waned much,
unlike the twist um they so you know, political standing
armies have been around for a while, right, you mean
the dance a twists um. So as a result, mercenaries
have kind of fallen to the wayside until um, World
(08:26):
War two, Yeah, which kind of changed everything and a
lot of a lot of World War two was a
probably the most landmark event in the last I don't know,
since the Magna Carta. Maybe everything changed after that. You know,
Germans got volunteers actually, so technically they weren't mercenaries. We'll
go over in a minute what the Geneva Convention actually
(08:48):
says as a mercenary, but I think the Germans actually
had volunteers from other country but Fry will just call
them free willie free willies. So yeah, was in World
War Two. Actually they were um. Yeah, and since they
were volunteers and they weren't paid, they weren't technically mercenaries,
but they fulfill a lot of the other stuff, a
(09:08):
lot of the other criteria. Um. So then yeah, after
World War Two, UM, part of the Geneva Convention, this
agreement among all the warring nations and the allies on
the Rules of War UM, mercenaries and their use and
their definition is very much addressed, right, Yes, in the
first Protocol of nineteen seventy seven. Should we go with
(09:31):
the criteria. Yes. In order to be considered a mercenary, Josh,
you must be specially recruited to take part in the conflict,
but not a member of the armed forces of the
state that recruited you. Right, that's kind of a big one.
Like the German volunteers and World War Two, they're from
other countries. Exactly. You need to actively engage in hostilities, otherwise,
I guess you probably wouldn't be very good mercenary. If not,
(09:53):
you're just some guy standing on the sideline. Exactly. Uh,
you were motivated by private gain and your p its
substantially more than the ordinary armed forces of that state.
Soldier of fortune. Yeah, we'll get into that too, though
it's not quite as lucrative when you factor in some
other things. You know, I was kind of surprised about that.
And um, what else is that the last one? Yeah, no, Chuck,
(10:15):
that pretty much does wrap it up. I think you
covered all the big points, um. And even earlier than that,
mercenaries were kind of put on the fringes um, right
after World War Two when the original Geneva Convention was established,
because they created the definition for a lawful combatant. Yes,
basically what we think of as a soldier, somebody who
belongs to a nation that's important to that's a war right,
(10:37):
because if you're a lawful combatant, Um, you can engage
in offensive conflict, yeah, with with people in other countries.
You protect people, and if you're caught, you are expected
to be treated as a prisoner of war. If you're
a mercenary, you're way far out there on the edge. Yeah,
you're kind of on your own, like you can be
(10:57):
tried for murder and half towards whatever. Um. And remember
I think in September two thousand seven, Blackwater, very very
famous UM outfit. I thot you're talking about the DeBie
brother song No black Water. No, No, we're not talking
about that one different guys. Um, yeah, you know Blackwater? Right.
(11:18):
Actually I responded to someone asked to do something on
black Water, and I responded, yeah, maybe we should do
one of the Dubie Brothers as a whole. And he
didn't get the joke at all. He wrote back and said, no,
that's weird that you thought that I was really talking
about black Water. Well that's weird you didn't get the joke, right, Yeah,
Um you remember. Okay, so you are aware of black Water? Okay.
(11:39):
And they I think that right after this they changed
their name to Blackwater Worldwide and now there's z x E. Yeah,
they keep changing their name with very horrible travesty. But um,
you know a lot of people call them them mercenaries.
They're now called private military contractors, but basically they supply
soldiers of fortune, right, yeah, for secure mainly. And um
(12:02):
that we remember in two thousand seven there was this
horrible thing that went down in Baghdad where I think
seventeen Iraqi civilians were killed. Um when when black Water
um contractors opened fire, Yeah, got real trigger happy, and
I think they found that fourteen of those deaths were unjustified. Yeah,
(12:22):
they broke the deadly forced rules, right, and Iraq was
chomping at the bit to prosecute these guys. And I
believe the US stepped in and protected them, but I
mean they it was very possible for them to be
prosecuted because they weren't lawful combatants. Well, the US uses
a lot of these UH contractors, as it turns out,
because I saw the U n Pastor resolution in the
(12:43):
late eighties outlawing this kind of mercenary, but the US
conveniently has still not signed that document because what we
want to hire the mercenaries because they What happened is,
and William makes a great point, is with UH the
different rules of warfare. Now you have lots of weapons
systems and UM soldiers that are trained to man these
systems and operate these systems. So what happens is they're
(13:05):
spread a little thin with UM some of these day
to day duties like UH security of like high ranking
civil servants, that kind of thing, right, which the military
would usually take care of. Right. UM. Anytime you see
hummed cars, I you'll see a couple of white guys
who wear Oakley sunglasses and have beards with um, I
(13:26):
guess uh Heckler and cock um guns. And they are
I think former Delta Force, but now they work for Z.
They're not smiling, no, but they provide security. And they
can do that lawfully. You can provide security. You can
provide um a defensive security where you're not engaging in
any offense whatsoever. Um supposedly, right, and then you're a
(13:51):
lawful or your your a mercenary under the Geneva Convention,
the guidelines and the protocol and all that. Right, I
gotta staff for you. Okay. It's said that the US
likes to use these these soldiers of fortune. There's uh,
there's no hard numbers, but they suggest that more than
a hundred and eighty thousand of these contractors are working
in Iraq alone, and that all together, all over the world,
(14:14):
that they outnumber the United States military in total. Yeah,
and we've spent about a hundred billion dollars in the
Iraq war on these mercenaries, which I think something like
a quarter or a third of the total that we
had spent. Yeah, when this article was written, I think
in late two thousand and eight, right, which of course
is smaller now. So Chuck. You know, Africa has been
(14:37):
a big site for mercenaries and it still continues to be.
That's what I hear. There's pretty much anytime there's a revolution,
a coup attempt, something like that, and anybody has some cash,
they hire outside mercenaries, right yeah. Uh. And there's a
guy named Simon man Do you remember this, Yeah, back
in two thousand four. In March two thousand four, man
Um was the head of two companies UM that were
(15:01):
private military companies, contractors, but basically mercenary outfits. Right, yeah,
sand Line International. And I love the name of this one,
Executive outcomes, right. I don't know what that means, yeah,
but it sounds so shady. Yeah, it does. Executive Like
you can just see like their their company headquarters, executive outcome.
It's like one of those offices that you wander into
(15:23):
to ask, like to use the bathroom, and they never like,
what is this place? What do you guys do here?
And you just escorted out. When you wake up and
on the park bench and take a lump on your head,
you have like ink on your fingers. Right, So well,
man Um in March two thousand four led a group
um of mercenaries from South Africa and I guess his
(15:43):
company um to Equatorial Guinea and he didn't make it.
He got picked up in Zimbabwe at they were going
to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. UM the president
Teyodoro Obang A right nice and uh they got picked
up and held and apparently he was just recently pardoned
(16:04):
by President Obang and released in November. UM and he's
out and he is naming names. The story that he
tells now he's back in Great Britain is that Mark Thatcher,
Sir Mark Thatcher, whose last name he might recognize. His
mom was the PM for a while UM and as
some other people from around the world had an interest
(16:25):
in the oil fields at Equatorial Guinea and hired allegedly
hired time and man to overthrow the government so they
could move in uh and get these oil revenues or
control these oil fields. And he was condemned pretty roundly.
Man was but he was fully pardoned by Obang. He was. Yeah,
it was in prison for five and a half years,
but he did have to shut down executive outcomes apparently, right. Yeah,
(16:48):
and sand Lie, Yeah, they're they're probably opened up under
another name. Though probably probably not. But if you think
about thinking about how people think of Blackwater or UM.
You know, Simon Man, no one cared. He was in
prison for five and a half years, like and the
reason why is because he was a soldier of fortune.
These are mercenaries, you know, and people just don't think
(17:09):
of them very highly. True. You can we name some
of these other companies? Yeah, sure, just because I thought
it was kind of funny some of them. And if
I had a mercenary company, I don't know what I
would name it, but it would probably not be the
Olive group that was one of them. Yeah, And triple canopy,
that's that's probably a military term. And what's another goal
(17:30):
on this? One's good kroll k R O L L Government. Yeah,
that probably stands for something. UM. The one that got
that I think stands out above all the rest is
Global risk Strategies. I can see us if you go
to Guatemala calling on Global Risk Strategies to come get
us out. You know, I'd love to have that number. Actually,
(17:53):
maybe we should look that up. So, Chuck, let's talk
about another famous group of mercenaries that aren't necessarily and
a look down upon UM. The French Foreign Legion. You know,
the guys with the white Caps with the with them.
Do you remember in the eighties, like when did you
break dance? No? Do you remember those hats though? They
(18:16):
were like baseball caps, but then they had the flapping
back yeah, yeah, yeah, they were kind of based on
the engineers hats and what's up with that? Who knows?
Weird time. They're always leading the way fashion forward. Alright,
So these guys with the white Caps, right, yes, the
French Legion are technically you could call them mercenaries, although
(18:37):
they they can't eventually gain French citizenship through joining the
Foreign leagus right after three years and they have to
sign up for five year tour of duty, five year contract.
And the French Foreign Legion was established in eighteen thirty
one because when the French Revolution happened in July of
eighteen thirty apparently this opened the floodgates for people I
(18:57):
guess seeking their fortune in the newly free France for
French republic Um. And so the French said, well, you
know what, let's put all these ragamuffins and no good
knicks to good use, and they started the French Foreign Legions.
So if you came in if you wanted to become
a Frenchman. Uh, and I guess you're an able bodied man.
They said, sure, you can become a friendman. Sign up
(19:18):
five years, we'll put you in the foreign legion. After
three years you can become a citizen. After the fifth
year you can come back and do whatever you like.
And many were no good knicks actually in the early days.
And still it's Mike joining the circus or you know,
sometimes we have some no good knicks that joined up
in the army at eighteen because they're you know, parole
(19:40):
officer says that might be a good move for him,
and the army will shape them up and turn them
into good citizens hopefully or vengeance killers. So can we
talk more about the legionnaires. I think we should. Yeah, okay, Well,
they get um recruited and they get a proof of
preselection and that means you get a little medical check
(20:02):
up and what they call a quote confirmation of motivation. Right,
they want to make actually do want to do this?
Or you're aware that you're signing up for five years
to go be in the military, right, And once you
pass through that stage, you go to another set of
like more thorough questioning and medical uh checkups, and then
you go to basic training for fifteen weeks a little
(20:23):
country town in the south of France. And at the
end of that they introduce you to your you know,
your comrades and your military life. They teach you French
ideal you can speak a little French at the end
of this. And then at the end you get your
cape blanc, which is that goofy looking white at right,
And it isn't it? It is? And it kind of
stands out it's not very practical. No, and uh, there's
(20:44):
a picture of a modern foreign legionnaire, French foreign legionnaire,
and he does he's wearing like a beret and camo
and all that stuff. So I think it's kind of
like their dress. Sure thing. Um, but so okay, so
you have gone through basic training, you're a legionnaire now. Um,
apparently there's eight thousand of them at any given point
in time right now. They hail from a hundred and
(21:06):
thirty six different countries, strangely including France itself. How does
that work? I don't know. We'll have to find out. Yeah. Um,
so the uh, they after you get through basic training
and you're you're now a legionnaire. They send you to
I guess one of eleven regiments all over the world,
Chad Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, all over the place, some places
(21:27):
you don't really want to be. I would imagine you
want to get a Chad. No, I got another staff
for you. Eighteen thirty one, Josh. Since then, more than
thirty five thousand legionnaires have been killed in combat. Right,
it's a lot. Yeah. I think part of the reason
we mentioned that legionnaires aren't necessarily looked down upon, even
though they are pretty much a mercenary group, because they
(21:49):
do get paid and they don't they're not doing it
for ideology. But I think the fact that you sign
up for five years, you can attain citizenship through this,
and you're serving a specific nation kind of ads like
kind of a military tinge to it, you know what
I mean. Well, they're no more as soldiers instead of contractors.
Let's talk about the contractors there, chuck. Yeah, these guys
(22:10):
are typically ex military or former police officers. Um, the
batter the better, you know, like Green Berets as Delta Force.
This is who you want in your PMC. Yeah, Like
Simon Mann was a x S a S guy. Right,
So these these dudes are brought in, they are paid
(22:31):
UM it says six hundred, seven hundred dollars a day,
sometimes up to a thousand dollars a day for their work.
Not bad, it's substantial. But what we're saying earlier is,
and this is kind of funny, is they typically don't
get benefits, which surprised me. I thought any company would
want to get a benefit pay together. But no, you
can't get a break as e mercencey risk. So you
(22:51):
gotta pay for your own benefits. You have to cover
your own taxes and all that. Yeah, and how much
is life insurance if you're a soldier of fortune? I
have no idea, but it's astronomical. So at the end
of the day, once you take out all the money
for all those things and for you know, milk and sugar,
they're probably not paid a whole lot more than a
regular military personnel. Probably not maybe who I think if
(23:15):
you went to work for Blackwater something, you can probably
make a pretty decent amount of cash. Um. There's some
other things that UM private military companies and contractors do
that aren't necessarily war based, and there are actually kind
of cool. Um, there is a group that train UH
(23:36):
guides who combat poachers in the Congo um to prevent
the extinction of things like the black rhino. That's pretty cool.
Private security for corporations obviously, when de Beers is poking
around Africa, and Exxon and VP or the Beers definitely
needs the security. They're traveling around the country in hostile areas,
(23:56):
so they need the best of the best. And like
you said, um, guarding high risk dignitaries like common cars,
eye that kind of thing. Um. And then apparently they
also are used in counter drug operations. Yeah. I didn't
realize that. I didn't either. I mean, hey, the A
can't do it all right, Yeah, good point. Yeah, So
especially now in the use of private military contractors really
(24:20):
exploded in the nineties and they become, like you said,
so far entrenched in our military. That is, there's almost
no separating and we become so dependent on them. And
they also don't necessarily engage exclusively in um, you know,
gun toting missions, like they could cook they the same
(24:40):
company can can sing, cooks, drivers, like all all this
stuff that frees up our soldiers. Yeah. I didn't even
think about that. But there are some risks, some definite
downsides to using mercenaries, right, Yeah, I would say that
the one that stood out to me the most is
what you really want in a situation like war is
loyalty above all out, definitely, And when you're hiring a
(25:01):
mercenary there after the buck and they're not necessarily even
from your country, so you can't really count on that nationalism, right,
that ideology that motivates you to go, you know kill. Yeah,
that's that's the biggest issue. I would say. There's actually
a famous story from the fourteenth century about the Almo Gavaris. Yeah, Almogavaris. Yeah,
that's good. The how you say, almogo veris finish frontiersman, Right,
(25:26):
Some Byzantine leaders hired these guys to defend uh Byzantium
right against the Turks. Yeah, and they did successfully, and
then they turned on the Byzantines and um basically just
walloped them, did a what number six, number six, number
six on them for the next two years, So I
didn't work out too well. Yeah, you're the the very
(25:48):
people you hire to defend. You can say, you know what,
let's um, let's just go ahead and take everything you
got afterward, you know, it's much like hiring a hit man. Ah. Yeah,
I really really trained former mill terry hit man. Right. Um.
There's also uh that if you're in a military detachment,
a standing military detachment, right, political army. Um, there's a
(26:11):
lot of like you said, loyalty to the state, but
there's also a lot of um, interpersonal loyalty among soldiers
that doesn't necessarily happen with um with mercenaries, So there
can be a communication breakdown. They're not sharing intelligence, that
kind of imagine. They look out for each other. And
that's about it, right and whoever, probably they were hired
to protect specifically. But all bets are off at the
(26:33):
end of the day when you got a mercenary. I
think that's pretty much the key takeaway here, Chuck. All
bets are off when buddy that was that that's in
this in the fine print when you write that initial contract, Chuck.
We talked about this article. I think we covered most
of it, but there's a bunch more information that we
(26:54):
didn't get in this fine article by William Harris. And
if you want to learn more about mercenaries is type
that war into the handy search bar at how stuff
works dot com, which leads us, of course, to listener mail. Yes, Josh,
I'm gonna call this one from Anya from Boston, just
simple and this is about a near death experience. And
(27:16):
we we got a few of these, but I liked
Anya's just listen to your podcast on inde ease if
you couldn't tell from the subject. I had one that
I find interesting. I had one myself. I can't remember it,
but my mom told me what I said about it.
At the time, I was three years old and was
stick in the hospital. I can't remember why now, but
my lungs were mostly solid. Not a good way to
(27:37):
be born. Or I guess, yeah, she had the people
one that way. It's like breathing through butter. Yeah. Uh.
Suddenly she flatlined and she lived through it, and she
woke up. Her mom said she had a dream, or
that the girl had a dream where I was standing
at the entrance to the hospital and a big yellow
school bus pulled up. There was no driver, and when
(27:57):
I tried to get on the bus, a little ball
girl about a year older than me told me I
could not get on the bus because I was too young.
Just a note. I had no idea of what even
a school bus was at this point in time, because
I've been living in England, so that is my near
death experience. She tried to board. It sounds like a
bus to heaven, and the little gatekeeper said you're too young,
You're not ready to go, so go back. She goent back.
(28:20):
So look out for bald school girls. You know you're
dead when you encounter one of those. And that's one
from Boston. Well, thanks a lot, and yeah, we did
get a lot of pretty cool emails. Thanks to everybody
who sent in and shared their near death experience with us.
Somewhere just off the charts chilling indeed. Yeah. Um, if
you have any kind of story you want to share
(28:41):
with Chucker I. If you are a soldier of fortune,
somebody for hire. Uh, if you are a line cook
in a chain restaurant, we want to hear from you.
Send us an email to stuff Podcasts at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(29:02):
other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Want more
how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house
stuff works dot com home page. H Brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you
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