Contractor Life: After an 18-month of Deployment
Wes Bearden spent the last 18 months working in the Middle East as a Military Defense Contractor. After long hours providing help for American troops, he must make the adjustment to being back home.
Defense contracting has expanded dramatically over the last decade, particularly in the United States, where in the last fiscal year the Department of Defense spent nearly $316 billion on contracts. Contractors have also assumed a much larger on-the-ground presence during recent American conflicts: during the 1991 Gulf War, the ratio of uniformed military to contractors was about 50 to 1, while during the first four years of the Iraq War the U.S. over 190,000 contractors, surpassing the total American military presence even during the 2007 Iraq surge and 23 times greater than other allied military personnel numbers. In Afghanistan, the presence of almost 100,000 contractors has resulted in a near 1 to 1 ratio with military personnel.