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Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror

Product ID : 10169934


Galleon Product ID 10169934
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About Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story Of Blackwater

Product Description The founder of Blackwater offers the gripping true story of the world’s most controversial military contractor. In 1997, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince started a business that would recruit civilians for the riskiest security jobs in the world. As Blackwater’s reputation grew, demand for its services escalated, and its men eventually completed nearly 100,000 missions for both the Bush and Obama administrations. It was a huge success except for one problem: Blackwater was demonized around the world. Its employees were smeared as mercenaries, profiteers, or worse. And because of the secrecy requirements of its contracts with the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA, Prince was unable to correct false information. But now he’s finally able to tell the full story about some of the biggest controversies of the War on Terror, in a memoir that reads like a thriller. Review “Prince’s book belongs on the shelf next to the memoirs of the other Iraq and Afghanistan war chieftains…. we need Prince’s story to help us understand the history of the post- 9/11 wars and the myriad roles contractors played in these conflicts.” —The Washington Post About the Author Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL, is the founder and former CEO of Blackwater. Since selling the company in 2010, he has pursued a variety of new business ventures. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction December 6, 2003 AT ELEVEN P.M., EIGHTEEN CARS, WATCHED OVERHEAD BY U.S. ARMY APACHE and Kiowa Warrior helicopters, as well as by a pair of Blackwater he­licopters, known as Little Birds, stormed out of the Green Zone. They turned onto a pockmarked roadway, drove past scorched traf­fic barriers and burned-out remains of vehicles once used for suicide bombings, and sped toward Baghdad International Airport. A mo­torcade escorting a head of state and the U.S. secretary of defense doesn’t travel light. Especially not on the “Highway of Death.” That multilane stretch of asphalt connects Iraq’s largest interna­tional airport with the coalition-occupied Green Zone. For years, insurgents had effectively owned the five or so miles, ambushing convoys, diplomats, and American troops roughly once a day. So dangerous was the road that the State Department would ultimately outlaw its personnel from using it at all. And even before that, no one took that road without a plan. But sometimes Paul Bremer wouldn’t take no for an answer. Shortly before eleven p.m., Bremer, the United States presidential envoy and administrator in Iraq, had finished a meeting with Secre­tary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld outside the Green Zone. To the surprise of his Blackwater security detail, Bremer insisted he would see the secretary off at the airport. Frank Gallagher, the barrel-chested head of the detail charged with keeping Bremer alive, quickly recalibrated travel plans. “Need­less to say, some of the radio traffic back to me expressed grave con­cern about doing the mission and questioned my sanity,” Gallagher later remembered. “But I could see the look in [Bremer’s] eyes that this was not open for debate.” The trip out was uneventful, but Gallagher sensed the worst was yet to come. The show of force had certainly tipped off the insur­gents that something unusual was going on at the airport. And Bremer’s Blackwater motorcade would have to travel back to the Green Zone without the Pentagon detail that had accompanied Rumsfeld. Once Bremer had said his good-byes to the secretary, the Coali­tion Provisional Authority leader and his right-hand man, Brian McCormack, climbed into the back of an up-armored Chevy Suburban SUV. Gallagher gathered his Blackwater team. “I explained that get­ting back to the Green Zone was going to be an adventure, and made sure that everyone was aware of the dangers,” he said. “We promised to have a cup of mead in Valhalla later that evening.” Contractor humor. Around eleven twenty p.m., Bremer’s pared-down convoy