About the Author
Simon Chase is the pen name of a former member of the elite Royal Marine Commandos. He was recruited into the British Special Forces and served in the Special Boat Service. While there he carried out top-secret missions around the world, working alongside the CIA and DEA. More recently, he has mostrar mais worked with a close-knit team of US Special Forces operatives to provide high-level protection and intervention services for individuals, corporations, and governments all over the globe. Ralph Pezzuilo is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and journalist. His books include Jawbreaker (with CIA operative Gary Berntsen) and the SEAL Team Six series of thrillers (with former Navy SEAL Don Mann). mostrar menos
Obras por Simon Chase
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Sexo
- male
Membros
Críticas
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 2
- Membros
- 43
- Popularidade
- #352,016
- Avaliação
- 3.8
- Críticas
- 2
- ISBN
- 6
An incredible story! Chase (alias), a British Special Forces soldier who found himself an early retirement due to injury, continues his career as a private military contractor (PMC). Taking assignments as varied as a bodyguard for rich people, to stints with other special forces soldiers (retired SEALs, Delta Force, etc) in war zones throughout the Middle East. The author had many hair-raising adventures, it is amazing that he has packed so much living into one life. The chapters detailing incidents in Iraq, the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, and Benghazi Libya were spell binding!
Mr. Chase has an excellent ability to narrate, and the descriptions are so vivid that you feel you are there with him. If he can manage to stay clear of harms way long enough to write a sequel, I will be first in line to purchase it!
On a side note, I was flabbergasted at the amount of money spent on PMC's. Bear with me while I give a quote from the book: "In November 2003, the US Congress established the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, which allocated $18.4 BILLION (!!!) to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure... That was on top of the $54.4 BILLION Congress had provided that year for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the $92.1 BILLION it set aside in 2004, the $58 BILLION in 2005, and so on..... The money was huge. So was the number of firms that showed up to bid for contracts - 181, according to a US GAO report - eventually employing AS MANY AS 190,000 CONTRACTOR AND SUBCONTRACTOR PERSONNEL."
Wow! To paraphrase an old line, "Take a a billion dollars here, and a billion dollars there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money here".
And equally incredible is the process used to circumnavigate Congressional Oversight by hiring the PMC's. And the fact that these PMC's are pretty much out there on their own; no backup from the regular military, and no disability pensions or life insurance if the situations go bad. In fact, the government can deny any knowledge of these people, no matter how heroic their deeds may be.
This book was a real eye-opener for me. I highly, highly recommend this one!
(In the interest of fairness, I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for a fair review.)
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