A Loss of Innocents

Chapter 1

The Start

1978

The rush of combat can be addicting or repulsing. It depends on the personal experiences and the perspective of the individual involved. For those of whom it is addicting, the rush can be nearly impossible to replace outside of combat. For those of whom it is a repulsion, they can hardly shed themselves of the experiences soon enough. Regardless of the side your pendulum swings toward, the experiences will remain with you for the remainder of your life and may, at times, not be easy to deal with. The lucky ones, I suppose, find a compartment within which the experiences can be stored in perpetuity. The not so lucky find themselves reliving their experiences and eventually becoming engaged in a new kind of combat, one that nobody ever thought to warn them would creep back into their lives.

For me, it was a combination of experiences, the rush of combat, the revulsion of what my fellow man can be capable of, the regret for acts of violence I was responsible for, the second-guessing, the wishing I hadn’t been there, the wondering if there was something else I could have done and would it have turned out different. Most of all, you do what your training has prepared you for and what you need to do to keep you and those with you alive. Most of us strive to do the best we can, and many of us want to make come kind of difference. For me the best I could was joining the Navy. For me, making a difference was taking my career to the next level and joining the SEAL teams.

Boot camp was a flash, BUDS was a rush, SEAL training was a test of character, and I finally found myself surrounded by the most dedicated group of professional warriors I could have imagined. We played hard, trained hard, and fought hard. It’s hard to explain the bond we built and enjoyed through the years, and it is most assuredly impossible to replace that bond.

Much of what occurred while I served cannot be talked about and is not necessary for this account of my life, so out of respect for those serving, past, present, and future, I will not divulge mission information. It is, however, necessary for the understanding of what I was taught, and to do that I, at least, discuss some of the time I served.

I enlisted in June of 1978. After boot camp, I entered BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) class 161. After six months of hard and often brutal training, I joined my SEAL team, where training in earnest began in April of 1979. It turned out that I showed good aptitude and attitude for the SEAL sniper school, so I began training to become a team support sniper in October of 1980. After enduring some of the hardest training I could imagine, I graduated a smidgen over six months later, and rejoined my team.

1980

For the next eight years, I served with two different teams. We performed a myriad of missions on six continents all around the world. With each successive mission, our skills, comradery, and efficiency continued to hone itself. We served, on occasion, with mixed forces from other countries, on occasion with other special forces units from within our own militaries. We fought hard, played hard, and lived hard. As for our missions, I’m not recording dates. Dates are for historians, and I don’t care much about history. Suffice it to say that we were part of history, but will never be recorded in it.

Eventually, it came time for me to move on. I’d seen and done a lot. I had known a lot of brothers that had left the service and saw how hard it was for them to leave what had been such an intricate part of their everyday existence. I had seen, in some cases, the overwhelming regret they experienced and, in other cases, the sense of relief they experienced. To a man, however, there could never be any substitute for the camaraderie we shared. That regret I knew I would never lose after leaving.

1988

At first, I decided to take some time off to see people I’d not seen since I joined the Navy a little over eight years prior. I’d somehow managed to save a little money which kept me in clothes with a roof over my head and enough to eat as I moved around. I also took advantage of the unemployment compensation I had accrued while serving. As for those I had served with, I kept in touch with some for a number of years, and others seemed to just drop off the plane of my experience. It is not something you ever plan to happen or allow. It is just something that happens for no apparently good reason.

My first move to employment after service was with a Southern California private security service. There, I did some personal protection, access and security evaluation, facility security testing, and the occasional security detail work. Escorting high-profile, high-worth performers certainly has its benefits, and though it could be fun, it was marginally fulfilling for me. The challenge just wasn’t there. I was missing something, but at first, I wasn’t sure what it was.

Though I had been involved with some foreign events, I had never been one to pay much attention to the news or foreign affairs. I’d always left that kind of stuff to those that were more interested and closer to the sources of information. I’d made some acquaintances and friends in the security and analysis services for our government, but still left all the analysis and planning to those better suited for that kind of work. It took a pretty special set of skills, not to mention interest in the first place, to be accomplished at that kind of work.

1991

Jack Ronway was someone I’d met while serving with the teams. He was a company field operative that had been the source of some significant information for a few of our operations. I think he once told me he was from central Washington State, Centralia, or somewhere like that. We’d hit it off because we were both from the Pacific Northwest, had grown up doing a lot of the same things, graduated high school only a year apart (I was the senior), had similar political leanings, and had a lot of other interests in common.

I hadn’t seen Jack since about a year before I left the teams, nor had I given it much thought. That was a part of my life that was slowly fading behind me, well, not really since it will never fade behind me, but nonetheless, I had not thought much about his involvement in my life.

On a sultry late summer afternoon, I had finished up a security assessment assignment when my phone rang. I sat there for a few moments staring at the phone because my employer had assured me the next four days off, and I never got social calls anymore. My work was my focus, and other than the occasional evening at the bar, I didn’t get phone calls.

Hello, I said rather inquisitively.

Ricky, is that you? came an almost-familiar voice from the other end.

Yes…who is this? My mind raced trying to place the familiar-sounding voice.

Well, we stomped some of the same ground, played some of the same games, and got rained on a lot… Still wondering? came the response.

Jack! Is that really you? I hadn’t seen any of my old teammates or other associates from the military in a number of years.

Yes! How the hell have you been? His voice was a little louder now that he was certain he had reached me.

Pretty good, all things considered. A little work here and there, but mostly bored. You still keeping the same company? I asked, knowing full well he couldn’t tell me anything of import.

Oh, I don’t know. Not much has changed for me since the last time we talked. You busy this evening? I’m not one to question a possible good thing, but that was pretty close to the opening of conversations we had had in the past when he was about to provide some outside information pertinent to something we would be doing shortly. He had my interest, and besides, I didn’t really have anything holding me down or holding me back.

I had a hot date with a stripper, but I can postpone it, if you want to get together, I responded.

Okay…you remember the old watering hole we used to go to down in the Mission? Jack was not one to easily forget names, places, and dates.

Sure. I haven’t been down in that part of town in a while, but I remember it. I knew exactly where he was talking about, but hadn’t been there in at least three years.

"Great! Jack was usually pretentiously cheerful. At least for the moment, it seemed as though not much had changed. Meet me there tomorrow about 7:00 p.m., and we’ll toast a few of the old times and old friends."

Awesome… I’ll see you then, and I hung up the phone.

A feeling of cautious apprehension started to come over me. Suddenly, memories were flooding back. Places, actions, tactics I’d not thought about, much less practiced in a few years came flooding back. What if he’s got work for me? Can I measure up? Do I still have the skill level I once had? I changed into my sweatpants, put on my running shoes, and locked the door behind me as I went for a run. That usually helped to relax me and clear my mind.

This was the first time that running didn’t worked to clear my mind. I’d wound up on the beach about four miles from where I lived. I ran until the beach ended at the cliffs, ran back up to the road, and headed somewhat back toward my apartment, all the while playing and replaying some of the toughest missions I had been on in my mind. This time, though, I was reliving them in preparation for another mission, not to see what had gone wrong, or what could have been done better. I don’t think there ever was much that could have been done better. No, something in Jack’s tone of voice seemed to have alerted me to there being a need to be on my best game. I still haven’t lost my edge, I thought, and I’ve maintained my base skills… I should be ready, if he has something for me.

I didn’t get much restful sleep. It was as if I was leaving for a mission again. The rest was adequate, but not long and no deep sleep. I got up with the sun and went for another long run. I could focus while running and keep from ruminating too much.

I found my way to the pub by about six thirty that evening. The neighborhood had changed quite a bit. I found myself driving past the place two times checking the area out carefully. I don’t know why, but something about the area just felt different than it did the way I remembered it. The pub was in the middle of the block, with a parking area along the north side, a couple of small barred windows on either side of the front door, an alcove for the front door, and the building was painted a dark gray. There were a few short windows, about twelve inches high and three feet long high up on the wall on the parking lot side. The windows were painted to block most of the light from getting in. There was an exit door at the far end of the parking lot that opened outward into the parking lot. The area behind the building was dirt and gravel and looked like the storage area for the garbage bin. At the end of the lot for the building was a cinder block wall about seven feet high with other businesses on the other side.

I parked my car in a spot across the lot from the building, got out of my car, surveyed the parking lot, and then locked my door. I strolled casually around the corner of the building and entered through the front door. As I entered, I noticed that it hadn’t changed much since the last time I was there. To the left as you entered was the dining area with tables and wooden chairs. Just past the dining area were a couple of pool tables on the left. The bar consumed most of the right side of the building with the kitchen just past the end of the bar and the bathrooms past a few tables and chairs in the back of the bar. None of this seems really important, though, since there were only about ten people in the bar, four around the first pool table, two at the second, a couple at the bar, and another couple at the back tables, probably waiting for the second pool table to be available.

I walked down to the far end of the bar and took a stool in front of the large mirror. Budweiser, I told the bartender, who pulled a bottle from the refrigerator behind the bar, popped the cap off, and set it in front of me. That’s one fifty. I handed her a five-dollar bill. She rang it up, and set my change on the bar next to my beer.

It didn’t take Jack long to show up. I grabbed my beer, pocketed all but a dollar of my change, and we met about midway between where I had been sitting, and embraced in a strong hug of friendship. How have you been? Been keeping yourself busy with that all-important protection and security stuff? I knew he would never meet me without knowing what I’d been doing.

Man, you wouldn’t believe the celebrities you meet, and the people you greet working in personal and corporate security, I said, laughing facetiously.

I hate to imagine! Jack responded as we found our way to one of the tables a little further toward the corner in the front and away from the bar. You getting along okay since you left the teams?

Not too bad, I answered. If I wanted to get rich, I wouldn’t be working for someone else, but the money’s pretty good, I meet some interesting people, and occasionally get to be a thief or a burglar. Probably not the best description of what I was doing, but then it wasn’t too far off the mark. There are some people in the San Diego area worthy of personal protection, and there are some interesting places to burgle.

Well, Jack said, after taking a slow swig of his beer, then setting it down, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about that may be of a little interest to you. You’ve already seen a little bit of Africa, so you have some idea of what it’s like over there. I don’t know if you ever worked with any of the South African special forces, but they’re a pretty hardy bunch. I met some of them a few years ago doing a little work, and I’ve kept in touch for information’s sake. We’ve been following some of the activity in some of the countries over there that have either some important resources, or are in key strategic locations for other interests. Since the Europeans have been pulling out, some really shady people have been stepping into the voids. This has led to some pretty unsavory regimes taking shape that might need a little coaxing. In some particular instances, the countries have erupted into some pretty nasty civil conflicts.

Sounds interesting so far, I said as I listened keenly, trying to find out where I might fit in.

Okay… Well, as part of one the missions I was on, Jack continued, I met this guy by the name of Michael Mullen. He’s one of the founders of Executive Outcomes, or EO as they have become known. It’s what seems to be an up-and-coming idea. They’ve hired former special forces soldiers to create a private military company, or PMC. It’s an interesting idea. You have a private company that trains a country’s military for a pretty good fee. Everyone in the company makes a much better wage than they could ever do while serving, using the skills they acquired while serving, and, if the need arises, works right alongside the country’s military in actions against the country’s enemies. Pretty interesting, don’t you think?

So…let me understand what you’re saying, I responded. You have former special forces soldiers doing what they did while in the military, but for a lot more money, and not necessarily under fire?

That’s pretty much how it works…except that there are a few cases where they were tasked with direct action against the country’s enemies, Jack responded. This had my interest, but I wasn’t yet sure where this conversation was headed.

So…where do I fit in? What made you think of me? I wasn’t sure where to go with the conversation. A couple of simple questions should provide a direction.

I always thought you were a great operator. The reports I heard of your teams’ actions were always pretty damned impressive. I never really knew why you left the teams. I’d always thought you would be a lifer, you know. You really surprised me when you got out. It just seemed like such a premature departure, Jack said, watching me closely for what type of response I would return. He had always been really good at reading people. That’s part of what made him so good at his job.

I know, I said in a rather low tone. I’m not sure myself. I loved what I was doing, and never had a problem with it. I think maybe it was too many faces through the scope. I don’t know. I’ve been missing it a bit lately. I can’t help but wonder if my teammates are safe, and being watched over as carefully as I did… Oh hell, I know that’s bullshit. They have at least what I was if not better taking care of them. The bad ones that got away occasionally haunt me, and the good ones I couldn’t save eat at me, I said, realizing that I probably made the wrong decision in haste. This might be a chance for me to get back in the game and maybe even make a difference.

Tell me more, I continued.

Well, Ricky, EO is still recruiting qualified people, as it seems there is more interest in their services, Jack went on. "Seems that their success in providing training in Botswana has made them a serious commodity. The guerillas have become a serious drain in the Sierra Leone conflict, and they might be looking to EO as a solution. If you are interested in getting back into the game, I’m sure they would be very interested in talking to you."

You know I would, I answered, finding it hard to contain my excited interest. This would certainly be better than the babysitting I’d been doing, and the pay would probably be better too. In the past, I had always enjoyed the longer missions, as it gave me a chance to save money since there was nowhere to spend it while deployed. How soon can you have more information for me? I asked as I was trying to keep from sounding too excited about the idea.

"Great, Ricky! They’re seriously looking, and I told Mike I knew someone. He’s in town until next Monday—this being Thursday—and is interested in talking to you over breakfast Saturday morning, if you’re interested."

Sure, I’m interested, I said in a relatively low tone of voice. Tell me where to meet him, and let him know I’ll be there.

Okay, I’ll call him tomorrow morning, then get back to you on the time and place to meet him, Jack responded. Jack and I had worked closely enough a few times in the past that I think he sensed my anxiousness. We sat there talking about stuff for a little while until one of the pool tables opened up, then played a couple of games before parting company.

The next morning at 9:37 a.m. the phone rang. I let it ring a few times so that I wouldn’t appear too anxious.

Hello, I said as the phone reached my ear.

Ricky? came Jack’s voice on the other end.

Hey, Jack, how are you doing? I said in a deliberately calm voice.

Pretty good. Mike’s anxious to meet you tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. at the Hilton Hotel by the airport. He’ll be in the lobby waiting for you, then take you to breakfast. I think you’ll really like the guy. He’s pretty down-to-earth, Jack said.

Great! I said, allowing a little of my anxiousness to bleed through. Tell him I’ll be there. I’ll be in gray slacks with a black short-sleeve shirt.

Okay, I’ll let him know. Be talking to you soon! And he hung up.

Chapter 2

A New Beginning

Late 1991

The next day found me entering the Hilton Hotel at the airport at about eight forty-five in the morning. I walked slowly past the door into the lobby. It must have appeared as though I was looking for someone, as a man approached me and stuck his hand out. Rick Olsen? he inquired.

Yes, you must me Michael, I responded, sticking my hand out. We shook hands, and I could tell he was serious by the firm-but-not-overpowering handshake.

Yes, Michael Mullen with Executive Outcomes, but just call me Mike. He had that unmistakable South African accent I’d heard a few times in the past. He was about 5 feet, 11 inches with sandy brown hair, an obvious firm and stout build, probably weighing about 205 pounds. He was clean-shaven and neatly dressed with gray pants, and very light blue shirt, black shoes, and a red with small yellow diamonds tie, and a navy blue blazer. I’ll have my car brought around front, and we’ll go get some breakfast and talk for a while, he said with a very courteous tone of voice.

Sounds like a very good idea, I responded. A black rental Mercedes was brought around the front of the hotel. He handed the driver a fifty-dollar bill, and got in the driver’s seat as the passenger door was opened for me and I got in. We went to one of the nicer restaurants on the waterfront looking across the bay at North Island. We were seated at a table by the window, ordered, and then started talking over coffee while we waited for our meal.

We met Jack a number of years ago while we were still on active duty. We’d escorted him on some informational missions a number of times, and were always impressed with his abilities and knowledge of the region. Somewhere along the way we built a bit of a friendship, and have kept in touch with him since our units were disbanded. Lately, we’ve been looking for additional people to build our numbers in some specific areas. We’ve been approached by a couple of governments expressing interest in our abilities to deliver training and results. Jack has told us a bit about his direct dealings with you and thought you might be interested in joining our team of trainers and operators. If you are interested, we can make you a good offer for employment, but keep in mind that the working conditions can, at times, be a little dangerous and living conditions a bit sparse. Does this sound like something that may interest you?

Jack didn’t tell me very much about you or what you do, I responded, trying to act just a little guarded. What I’ve heard on the news about what’s going on in western Africa sounds a lot like what we dealt with over there a couple of times. I’ve been out of the Navy for about three years working personal security. While it pays the bills, it’s not very challenging. I’ve been finding myself more and more missing the challenge. I think I would be very interested in meeting some of your operators and exchanging ideas. It sounds very much like a team that I would like being a part of and contributing to.

Good. It sounds like you could be a good fit for what we need, Mike responded. Just then, our food arrived. We continued the conversation, me asking about any particulars Mike could provide, and Mike providing as much information as he could, without compromising anything. After breakfast, we went back to the hotel to continue the conversation. A couple of hours later, I had a list of items I would need to bring, a checklist of tasks I would have to complete, and a cashier’s check sufficient to complete both sets of tasks. Two weeks later, I was on my way to Johannesburg, South Africa, to meet up with Robert Johansen.

When I arrived at Johannesburg, it was a bit hotter than I thought it would be. The dry hot wind and the smell of industry that hit me as I stepped off the airplane reminded me that I was not in the United States anymore. That’s not a problem, as I’ve been outside the United States a fair number of times in the past. What was different this time is that I was arriving alone, and I would be working with people I’d never met before. I did find comfort in knowing that they were all well-trained professionals.

I met Robert as instructed on the other side of customs. The list of items I’d been given contained items innocuous enough that customs gave it a rather short curious looking over and waved me though. I got in the passenger side of the Land Rover (I would have been driving from that side, if I was back home), and we drove out of the airport. Three hours later, we were entering a plantation somewhere north of Johannesburg. We’d passed through a couple of small villages with the road we were on being, from what I could see, the only paved road in the village. There were a couple of armed sentries at the entrance to the compound. It took us about fifteen minutes to get from the entrance to the center of the compound. All the buildings looked the same, ranch-style single-story buildings with windows about every six feet around the building. The roofs were gentle sloping with gray roofing material, and dirty white walls on the outside. I found out later that the buildings were actually clean. They were just made to look dirty. That was the actual color of the paint. The compound was lightly wooded with rather small trees around the compound, and larger trees between the buildings. There was almost no grass in the compound with the area being almost all dirt and rock. Driving in the compound would kick up a little dust that seemed to settle back down pretty quickly.

I was taken to what would be my barracks of sorts. It consisted of a single large room that was partitioned into twelve separate living quarters by walls that almost met the ceiling. There were four bathrooms in the back of the building, two more in the front of the building with two separate studies or classrooms. The buildings were kept at about seventy-five degrees, and each living quarters had a ceiling fan, making living there pretty comfortable.

The first couple of days were pretty laid-back as I was given time to get over jet lag, while still getting oriented to the compound, the command structure, which was initially pretty lax, the eating accommodations, and the corporate operations. It became almost immediately apparent that I was one of the few foreigners in EO at that location. Most were former South African special forces or other elite unit members. As I had, over the years, served with a small handful of these men, I had no doubt that I would be comfortable and secure working with them.

On the third day, I met formally with my team leader, Justin, and was given a complete debrief on the training regimen, the weapons I would be issued, the ammunition assignment and allocation, and uniforms we would be expected to wear. The weapons where whatever you chose to use, and ammunition was pretty freely available. Personal practice was highly encouraged outside of formal training, and the facilities for practice and training were very well planned and laid out. Obviously, a great deal of thought went into the layout of the training and practice area. The compound itself was about a thousand acres, so the training was able to be very realistic and always with live ammunition. You were expected to be accountable for every shot during training, and the only time I saw an animal damaged was when it was put down due to being injured by the environment. It was clearly understood that the wildlife was to be treated with the utmost respect, and any unwarranted damage to wildlife would likely be cause for immediate dismissal. As we were all expected to be professionals, it was believed that this should be any easy guideline to follow.

At this compound, there were twenty teams of eight men. Most of the initial training was in small unit tactics. A typical exercise would be two units sent to extract a HVT (high-value target) from a small village. The initial unit would stage at the outskirts of the village and closely monitor while the second unit would find a location about 120 degrees around the village. Once the second unit was staged, the first unit would report the status of the HVT. If the HVT was not yet located, the second unit would recon closer to the village and locate the HVT. Once the HVT was identified, the first unit would start its approach. If contact was made, the first unit would immediately charge the location of the HVT, eliminating as many of those being engaged as possible. If any of the hostiles attempted to leave the village, planning would have them doing so in the direction of the second unit which would mop up, and we would extract the HVT and quickly get back to the staging area. Initially the tactics worked very well because we had strict control of the environment. The end goal was to achieve close unit cohesion and allow the units to explore and discover their boundaries. From there, we moved on to larger unit exercises, patrol tactics, and wildlife familiarization.

We would also occasionally get units from outside EO to provide training for. We would take them on exercises for tactics and teach them the physical training practices we had developed.

Though there were a few professionally trained snipers, there were not enough to provide one for each team. The goal was to have at least one qualified sharpshooter in each team, so the trained snipers would mentor an individual member of another team to bring their skills up to an acceptable level. Once their skills were at a suitable level, they were placed in more overwatch positions to ensure the safety of their team members.

We received daily news briefings, but not from what the press was showing. What we were getting was coming directly from inside the conflict areas. Angola was now becoming an area of interest. There were rebels that were running a campaign of deliberate interruption of any business or political activity associated with the sovereign government. We were told that there were high-level negotiations with some of the civilian corporate interests for possible asset protection. As this was something I had had a little experience with, the briefers would occasionally ask for my ideas before the briefings. If thought pertinent, my ideas would become part of the briefing for further discussion. The discussions would normally occur between the team leaders and one or two of the team members the leaders thought would have valuable input.

1992

In early 1992, UNITA rebels in Angola seized several privately held oil-processing facilities, and some equipment belonging to the oil companies in several areas. Unable to facilitate any asset release with the weakened government, the companies negotiated with EO for security services to include the recovery of their assets. This would be the first action I had been involved with since leaving the teams about four years earlier. We had been training hard and to a man were ready to deploy to anywhere we were needed.

The plan was to fly our initial teams into N’Zeto, northeast of the capital of Luanda. There was a facility owned by the client about eight miles south of N’Zeto where we would stage. From there, roughly two hundred men would be flown to the outer edges of the oil-processing facility in Soyo, thirty would be flown to the area where some of the assets were being held to the south, and another fifty would be flown to another asset location sixty miles east. I was initially to be part of the retaking of the oil-processing facility, but was diverted to the eastern operation as it was now thought that some of the client’s employees and families might be in greater danger there.

We launched our operations early the next morning with my mission leaving the staging area at 4:00 a.m., the oil-processing facility mission leaving at 4:30 a.m. and the southern mission leaving at 5:15 a.m. The intent was that they would all begin simultaneously, giving the UNITA rebels no time to become aware of the coordinated nature of the missions. We arrived at our staging area at about 6:00 a.m. We broke up into five teams and started moving into our targeted locations around the compound. Our plan was to roughly establish lines of engagement from the south of the compound, as it had the best cover with vegetation being closest to the living quarters buildings. I was to take the two men with me, and move to a hill overlooking the compound from the east.

There was no movement inside the compound. Nobody was keeping watch. Only a couple of women were moving around getting water, or some other benign task. By six fifteen, all the men were in place and ready to begin. Initially two teams from the center of the formation started toward the location where the assets were thought to be held. About three minutes later, another two teams, each from the furthest stretches of the formation, started entering the compound. The four teams made it to the asset location without incident and secured the assets. It was now 6:25 a.m. Now, it was time to clean up the compound. Three men remained with the assets for protection, while the others started to sweep the remainder of the compound. As they entered each of the buildings, there might be a little scuffle, but in short order, those inside the buildings were pretty quickly brought out in zip cuffs and placed facedown on the ground. It took thirty minutes to clear the compound with only six shots fired and five UNITA members dispatched. At 7:00 a.m. we called the client to let them know that their assets and personnel were intact and safe, and that they could inform the local military the rebels were available for pickup.

The southern mission went equally well, and was wrapped up by 7:00 a.m. We received a little more resistance at the oil-processing compound, as it was considerably more valuable and a bit more built up and better protected. We had the element of surprise, though, and the resistance waned pretty quickly when the rebels started seeing their comrades being dispatched quickly and easily. The facility was secured by 11:30 a.m. Our tally of UNITA rebels was 624 with 39 dead, and the rest turned over to the Angolan military. We had one member shot in the shoulder, and one slightly sprained ankle as a member jumped from a helicopter and landed on a rock. It turned out that none of the assets were damaged in any way. The total time of the mission was three days from initial staging to completion of the asset turnover. We were given a pretty substantial bonus by the client for the cleanliness and efficiency of the mission.

We now had the Angola government’s and other corporate interests’ attention. We were able to accomplish in a single morning what they had not been able to accomplish for a few weeks. We had also turned over a significant rabble of rebels from which they were sure to get valuable intelligence.

Another unanticipated benefit of the Angola actions that followed the successful Botswana and Namibia actions was more formidable military types of assets becoming available. We were now in the process of acquiring a few well-maintained Russian helicopters as well as better purchasing ability for some more specialized weaponry. Though EO didn’t know it at the time, their successes would scare the crap out of some countries that would see EO as a threat to their stability. EO had no such ambitions, but all the world is a stage for fools and cowards.

1993

In early 1993, EO got some contracts for diamond mine protection in Sierra Leone. Rebels, bullies, and thieves had been raiding the mines with impunity, as the government troops were poorly trained and equipped to handle them. Diamonds from these mines were finding their way all over the world, adversely affecting the prices of legitimate diamonds on the market. Many of the miners were being held hostage in order to secure the fruits of their labors. The government was still unwilling to commit their troops for security, as there were too many instances of their troops being involved with the thieves. Though still unwilling to endorse such a move, the government allowed the mine operators to contract EO for security of the largest mines in the country. By now, EO had swelled to about three thousand operators and was easily able to handle the security needs for the mines.

Initially, we staged intelligence-gathering teams surrounding the mines in order to determine the players in the operations. Within a week, we had a pretty good picture of the players from the bottom to the coordinators near or at the top.

As with the earlier Angola action, we determined a good staging area for our teams a short distance from the mines. The teams moved into their assigned positions and waited for the mine to start closing operations for the day. That would be when the miners would be leaving their digs and moving toward the collection areas. We wanted them to be well into the process of diamond steeling, as that would be when the thieves would be most active and unaware of their surroundings.

The first move was to collect and corral the bosses, those that openly ran the operations. That was accomplished within forty minutes. As the collectors started reporting to the bosses, they were quickly subdued and stashed. By the end of the day, we had prevented 450 quality diamonds from leaving for the black market. Word quickly spread, and the incidence of diamond stealing dropped off to a negligible percentage of those mined. We maintained our contract and presence for security for a number of years, with the bulk of the services being performed by the lower-level operators. The core of the units that had been involved in the Angola actions remained in Sierra Leone for a while providing training and direction to Sierra Leone military units, for which EO continued to get paid pretty well.

1995

Up to this point in my life, I had never seen the really dirty and cruel side of these conflicts up close and personal. I had known and worked with some that had, but that was their experience, not mine. Africa can be a beautiful place to visit and even live, if you have a desire to. It can also be such an extremely cruel and violent place. In some parts of Africa, human life has no value whatsoever. I was about to experience this brutality firsthand.

Sierra Leone had been experiencing an uprising for a few years, but it seemed to be keeping itself in the background. Outside of the larger cities and towns could be a pretty dangerous place, but it had remained there in the outskirts. We had not seen any of it during the diamond mine protection activities. In early 1995, it started to bleed out of the countryside and into the outskirts of the towns and cities. The government was becoming more openly alarmed at the level of brutality and their inability to keep it under control. The RUF (Revolutionary United Front) was becoming more and more brazen in their brutality. Numerous reports of heinous brutality were making their way into the headlines in and out of Africa. EO was finally contacted by President Valentine Strasser and asked if they could intercede. This was a bit broader a conflict than EO had worked with before, but we certainly had the expertise in small unit tactics, and EO felt it could be a good fit for us, so long as we were taking more of advisory and training roles.

Initially, the Sierra Leone troops were open and grateful for the training we were providing. There was still a hesitancy to engage in open combat with the RUF, as many of the soldiers had relatives that were in the RUF or lived in areas where the RUF was conducting open reprisals. It was soon determined that EO should take a more direct, active part in the conflict. We established areas that would be patrolled on regular intervals. These were deliberately chosen because they were areas with the highest incidents of RUF reprisals. The patrols would consist of between twelve and twenty EO operators occasionally accompanied by Sierra Leone troops.

The first few skirmishes were nothing significant. It seemed that the RUF was trying to test us to see what our level of commitment and abilities were. Within a few weeks, the RUF became more aggressive using higher numbers of rebels in the engagements. In each of the engagements I was in, the rebels would fire a few shots at us, then flee. We would immediately take the fight directly to them and run them down. The result was almost always RUF, none surviving; EO, none injured significantly. This game went on for about a month. Eventually, the RUF was unwilling to engage us, and we had to search for them. Our search missions were usually quite successful, and we started amassing large caches of seized RUF weapons.

On this one occasion, we were operating out of Kanebu, in the northern part of the country. We were on an extended patrol that was intended to be a week long. We carried most of our supplies with us leaving the excess in our base camp each day we patrolled. Most roads in this area are not paved, but instead dirt wheel tracks. There are a number of game trails that are easily used for travel between villages. We were approaching our target village about five miles from our base camp. We had been told that there were RUF guerillas in the area that were taking supplies from the villages. As we approached, a man and two small children came running toward us. He had been shot in the side, but the children were okay. He told our interpreter that the guerillas had come into the village and started killing all the adolescents and grown men. As the man was escaping, he heard the guerillas yelling to collect the women in the center of the town. After that, he was gone and had no idea what had happened. We provided medical aid to stem the flow of blood, and told the man to keep heading west toward Kanebu. There, he could find further medical treatment. We kept moving toward the village.

As we approached the village, we spread out to about five yards apart. That would give us the best cover while maintaining a good field of fire. We could see considerable smoke rising from the village. In this part of the world, most villages consist of a cleared area surrounded by trees, with grass thatch huts built on a skeleton of branches from the trees. The huts will burn very easily if lit on fire, which is why most of the cooking occurs in centralized areas well outside the hut. Many of the huts are used to house families along with some of their domestic animals, so the smell can be pretty overpowering for those not accustomed to it. On the edge of the village we found a number of the males that the guerillas had killed, most being shot in the back of the head with their faces blown out. We had pretty much expected to see this as it was the normal method of operations for the RUF. As we walked slowly and deliberately toward the center of the village, we started hearing some faint mutterings and crying. We cautiously cleared each of the huts forming the outer edge of the village. We kept moving forward to the center of the village. As we reached the center of the village, what lay before us cannot be described, and even the most hardened of us were utterly repulsed by what we saw. The women and children had been corralled in the center of the village. Some of the women had their hands completely severed, with the appendage lying in the dirt nearby. Some of the women then had their breasts completely cut off their chests and lying on the ground somewhere near the body. It seemed obvious that most died very quickly after that atrocity. Many appeared to have been viciously raped with the perpetrator carving markings on their stomachs and hips. Some had their legs completely cut off apparently after the sexual assault was complete. Many of the women and girls had large tree branches or some other form foreign objects trust into their vaginas, most likely after having been raped. Some of our team quickly left the area to violently throw up outside the area of carnage. Some of the team cried as they beheld the absolute brutality of what had happened. There was so much blood that the ground had become a muddy scene of carnage.

We still heard faint mutterings and crying. It was clear that it could not be coming from the center of the village, so we all quickly regained what composure we could and set about searching for the sources of the sounds. They were not behind us as we had thoroughly cleared the huts we passed. They had to be ahead of us. We continued to carefully and quietly clear the remaining huts. Toward the far end of the village, we found a woman barely alive and what we believed to be her two children clinging to her one remaining arm. The children were now in complete shock from the ordeal. We immediately set about trying to save the mother’s life. We managed to get her stabilized to the point of being able to give us information about what had happened. She told us that most of the guerillas’ energies were used in the far end to the center of the village. By the time they reached her and her children, they didn’t seem to have the interest in the type of carnage they had exhibited during their entry to the village. They had only knocked her down, and then severed her arm just below the elbow. She told us that as they left, they were laughing at what they had done. She had clearly heard them state their destination which she believed to be their base camp, a village about five miles away.

We gathered at the edge of the village and called for local assistance to get the woman out of the village, then made our plan for the next village. Justin was the team leader for this mission. He pulled the area operations map out of his pack and laid it on the ground.

This is where we are right now, he said in a low tone of voice as he pointed to a dot on the map. This is the village the woman told us is the destination of the band of guerillas. He pointed to another dot on the map near a river. We will have to cross these hills—again he pointed to an area of the map—"and approach the village using the banks of the Maboli River. The river is about fifty meters from the village, and I would anticipate good covering vegetation from the banks of the river to