Force for Hire

In this final episode of Force for Hire, we examine some key issues about the private military contracting world that we uncovered.

The cost effectiveness of contracting kept coming up as one of the major questions during the season, and experts had widely differing answers.

We found that the broad use of third-country and host-country nationals in security contracting often goes overlooked, particularly when it comes to their ca...

In this penultimate episode of Force for Hire, we welcome on air Neryl Joyce, an Australian servicemember who turned to contracting when she wasn’t allowed to deploy with her fellow soldiers. 

She soon found out that what kept her from deploying with the Australian military was one of her greatest assets in the private sector. 

Joyce worked with a couple of different private military contractors, one of which was the infamous Black...

Thanks to high-profile cybersecurity operations — the recent U.S. cyberattack against Iran and Russia’s 2016 attack on Ukraine’s power grid, for example — the public is much more aware of the digital threats that the U.S. faces.

While the public lags behind in understanding these threats, the U.S. has for years been taking steps to keep U.S. assets safe from foreign and domestic hackers. The National Security Agency has long been ...

Attorney Kimberley Motley has spent years fighting for justice in a country where most women are still fighting for basic human rights.

As the first foreigner to litigate cases in Afghanistan’s criminal courts, Motley faces judges whose concept of “not guilty” is often as foreign as the “perahan tunban” is to Americans.

This week Force for Hire welcomes Motley, who has made a career out of fighting corruption in Afghanistan and h...

Military contractors in Iraq have had to deal with a near constant threat of violence, corrupt politicians and untrusting locals who often saw them as an invading force. South African national Johann Raath had to deal with all of that during his many years working security in the Middle East.

But when the Islamic State came to power in 2014, he — and other contractors supporting the U.S. mission in Iraq — faced a new threat. As one...

Maritime security operations are complex. The mesh of international politics, private company procedures and the uncaring nature of the open seas make for a security situation best handled by professionals. 

More often than some may think, those professionals are private military contractors. It’s those security professionals often tasked with keeping vital shipping lanes open, fighting off threats and keeping the goods people worl...

The day Russell Frost and two former American soldiers were kidnapped was an unusual one, even by the standards of 2016 Baghdad.

On Jan. 15, as the battle against Islamic State raged across the country, Frost and his two fellow contractors — former U.S. Army soldiers Amr Mohamed and Waiel el-Maadawy — found an interpreter to assist in their government mission of training coalition forces.

The interpreter was a strange one, Mohamed ...

Michael Thomas Hoare has lived a life that, were it not endlessly documented, would seem a pastiche of barroom brags, urban legends and anecdotes lifted from mid-21st century military pulp fiction.

Hoare, better known as “Mad Mike,” is a soldier of fortune. A mercenary. He has seen combat in multiple battles during World War II with the British army, and in numerous conflicts across the Congo and elsewhere. He recently celebrated h...

Force for Hire’s hosts have focused primarily on American military contracting. We’re changing it up this week as Michelle and Desmon look at a private Russian paramilitary force that is a global threat, even though it isn’t formally recognized by its government. 

The Wagner Group, believed to be run by former Russian military intelligence officer Dmitriy Utkin, is shrouded in secrecy. A 2017 Bloomberg article placed its membershi...

When the United Kingdom sent soldiers to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the force was marked with veterans of a decades-long conflict between England and Northern Ireland, which came to be known as “The Troubles.”

Among those soldiers was a Tim Collins, a British colonel in charge of the Royal Irish Regiment’s 1st Battalion. Collins, 59, had grown up in Belfast and came of age while serving in the British army as his hometown was ...

There is a lot of money in the private military and security contracting worlds. While the U.S. remains ahead of the pack in defense spending, countries like Saudi Arabia spend a greater percent of their gross domestic product than the U.S.

Other countries in the Saudi region continue to build up their defenses by recruiting native forces or hiring private military contractors.

The United Arab Emirates is known for hiring foreign n...

Tim Lynch retired from the Marine Corps in 2000 after a lengthy career as an infantry officer.

Some would consider that timing — just a year before the 9/11 attacks thrust America into decades of combat operations — fortuitous.

Not Lynch.

The retired Marine major saw his former brothers-in-arms deploy, watched them put into practice the combat training he had spent his life perfecting. He wanted in.

So Lynch threw his resume at eve...

This week on Force for Hire, we bring aboard a pair of experts to examine an aspect of military contracting that ties into issues of human rights abuses and modern-day slavery. 

Third-country nationals, workers not employed by a company headquartered in their home country and operating in a country outside of their native lands, are often part of the contracted workforce supporting the Department of Defense. A 2019 U.S. Central Com...

Cindy Waldron has done a little bit of everything, it seems.

She has taken big rigs up and down America’s highways. She has delivered much-needed supplies to troops in Iraq, braving gunfire and improvised explosive device attacks along the way. She’s a proud mother of a U.S. soldier and author of the 2006 book “Cindy in Iraq: A Civilian’s Year in the War Zone,” which chronicles her experiences.

She’s also a survivor – of firefigh...

As complex as military health  care can be, servicemembers don’t have to worry about the Department of Defense shutting down overnight. Contractors who work for smaller private military or security firms have faced exactly that, leaving them without continued care. 

Even though that was an extreme case, contractors commonly face a tangled web of regulations, insurance policies and legal loopholes when seeking health care.

A trio o...

The idea of leaving active duty for a contracting gig is a dream that many servicemembers share. And why not? Heading back to college at an older age or going from leading a fire team to working in retail can sound less than exciting.

Taking hard-earned military skills and applying them to a lucrative new career is appealing to many veterans. But is contracting all it’s cracked up to be?

In the last episode of Force for Hire, we he...

With Force for Hire, we’ve covered the modern history of military and security contracting, talked to veterans of the industry and spoke to the families affected by the realities of the business.

Now, it’s time to find out what it takes to become a military contractor: the skills needed, the attitudes recruiters are looking for and what challenges veterans can expect to face when looking to make the leap into the industry.

Many vet...