Collateral Damage

It is an insult to all Americans when insinuations are made that there is any joy by causing inadvertent death or permanent injury caused by our US forces. This ranges anywhere from our Predator  Drones all the way to firefights on the ground and plenty in between. There has been plenty of criticism with how some of our contractors have behaved in Iraq and some of this has been justly earned. However the big picture must be analyzed. Although plenty of top names warned the head sheds that Iraq would be an ugly guerrilla war comparable to Vietnam these warnings were ignored therefore a prolonged quagmire with plenty of civil wars to go along with it was in fact exactly what we stepped into. This created the urgent necessity of utilizing private contractors (PSD) Executive Protection details that provided our ambassadors and dignitaries with escort missions from point A to B. This kind of work is a completely different arena compared to our stateside details. High Value Targets such as any American especially a big name politician was considered huge bounty material.. The rise of utilizing contractors through absolute necessity happened at such a rapid pace nobody was really prepared for it. There wasnt enough boots on the ground from our regular troops, although many were qualified they were already quite busy with their specific MOS. All PSD contractors had previous military and stateside law enforcement experience for the most part at an elite level. Their pay was far greater then our military forces and they were technically civilians working outside of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and this created plenty of controversy as well. .It was considered the Wild West because the critics believed these elite warriors were operating way above the law with no accountability for their actions however the rules were changed after the Nissor Square incident in 2007. By bringing years of experience to the table from various theaters of operation on a worldwide level this means they already paid their dues so to insult a soldier for hires patriotism is an insult at the highest level. We have been utilizing so called mercenary fighters dating all the back to the Revolutionary War with the Minute Men and without question they were all able to get the job done.  There were plenty of smaller private intel firms that provided the same kind of work as the big names such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy at a fraction of the budget. This kind of work is as dangerous as it gets, Prime Minister Bhutto of Pakistan flat out refused a high level threat PSD detail and this is what led to her assassination in Dec.2007..The fact that BW never lost a principle during the entire campaign is truly remarkable. There were a few enemies created along the way and this even includes some friendly fire to our own soldiers. In fact I had the honor of living with a former member of Task Force 121 at the National Training Center. One of the goals for his unit was to create scenarios that made it easier to identify which players were actually playing on the same team .He was on the mountains of the Hindu Kush in 03 tracking Bin Laden w/80 pds of gear on his back at high altitude moving uphill for days on end.He was a humble and quiet professional and shared his philosophies on life with me on a very deep and personal level. Task Force 121 was a United States Department of Defense special operations task force. TF121 was a multi-service force commanded by U.S. Air Force Brigadier GeneralGregory L. Trebon. The spearhead of the force is a forty-man team made up of operators from the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, U.S. Army's Delta Force, U.S. Army'sIntelligence Support Activity, the U.S. Navy's DEVGRU, the CIA's Special Activities Division, DIA personnel,^[1] and the U.S. Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Other Special Operations contributions included U.S. Air Force Combat Controllers, and U.S. Air Force Pararescue. On occasions, operators from Coalition nations (particularlyCanadian, British, Australian and Polish operators) augment the TF121 and provide direct and indirect operational assistance.. A perfect example of how these  men really operate was when a highly specialized Maritime Force of Recon Marines seized control of the Magellan Star from ruthless pirates off the coast of Somalia in Sept 2010 without  firing even one single round.. There were 9 prisoners aboard and our guardian angels were a Special Forces team among the highest trained and elite  in the world comparable to Seal Team and Delta. There is no joy in taking the life of another by our angels and I need to get this message across because unfortunately we hear and read all about collateral damage and how evil we are but we don't really learn as much about our real victories and the American Way which is to preserve life at all cost however if the situation calls for eliminating the enemy to accomplish the mission this is what must be done. If you ever met a quiet professional, the real operators that engage in this kind of dangerous work you would understand exactly what I am talking about..Saving lives without unnecessary loss of life is exactly what they train for and when this happens as exemplified during the Magellan Star Raid this creates a tremendous amount of pride for the very select few of this chosen profession and this kind of success is  what is considered what their real victories truly are.