Contractor Life
When most people think of the Bahamas, they picture luxury resorts and turquoise waters. But for U.S. contractors stationed on Andros Island, life looks a little different — quieter, tougher, and surprisingly fulfilling.
Whether you’re headed to support operations at the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) or tapped for logistics, environmental work, or communications roles, here’s what you need to know before boots hit the island.
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Life on “The Rock”: What It’s Like for U.S. Contractors at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait
For over two decades, Ali Al Salem Air Base—nicknamed “The Rock”—has been a major hub for U.S. military operations in the Middle East. Nestled in the Kuwaiti desert, it has transformed from a dusty tent city into a permanent, well-fortified base. Along the way, thousands of American contractors have worked here, supporting everything from aircraft maintenance to IT, logistics, and base security.
So what’s it really like working and living there? Here's the breakdown.
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courtesy of @JoeSpinstheGlobe
Deep in the heart of Antarctica, perched at the Earth’s southernmost point, lies the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station—one of the most remote and unforgiving outposts on the planet. While the station is known for its groundbreaking scientific research, much of its success depends on a dedicated force behind the scenes: U.S. civilian contractors. These professionals support everything from station maintenance and logistics to communications and field safety, making life and science possible in one of the harshest environments on Earth.
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(POC) — Germany is an exciting and affordable place to live, with many ex-pats from around the world choosing to settle down there for a couple of years for employment assisting troops on US bases in Germany.
Germany is known for being a modern and diverse country, with a rich heritage in fine food and drink. Expats will find that in general, infrastructure in Germany is of a high standard in education to healthcare.
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Kimberly Motely a practicing attorney and litigator since 2003 and has worked in Afghanistan since 2008. She is the founder of Motley Legal Services and cofounder of Motley Consulting International. She is the first foreigner who has ever litigated cases in Afghanistan's Criminal Courts and has a strong litigious practice focusing on criminal, commercial, contract, civil, and employment law matters.
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You've seen the pictures, watched the videos, read the books and now you've decided you want to actually go to Antarctica. Maybe you can't afford to go as a paying passenger or maybe you want to experience the continent more fully, more closely and most of all - during the winter months when no tourists can visit.
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About a hundred yards into Iraq, we stopped to pick up weapons. A half dozen Kurds in white Citroëns met us in a trash-strewn lot just over the border from Kuwait. They were unloading the guns onto the trunk of one of their cars as we pulled up. The pile amounted to a small armory: German MP5 submachine guns, AK-47s newly liberated from the Iraqi army, 9mm Beretta pistols, and dozens of magazines of ammunition.
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As the longest war in American history is ended, a variety of unique stories have bubbled to the surface. One belongs to Tim Lynch, a retired U.S. Marine who lived and worked in Afghanistan for approximately eight years as a civilian. In a war-torn country, Lynch worked many different jobs, from security contractor to aid worker. With a strong military foundation, he developed a unique perspective on the Afghan people that many never have the privilege of seeing — even those who have spent years at war there.
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Military-civilian contractor in Iraq talks about changing companies in the middle of a contract, travel, and more.
The US recently announced the end of active combat for troops in Iraq. On the ground, there will only be small changes, but it could signal a different attitude towards Iraq. Last month, the US military announced it had ended its combat role in Iraq.
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"There are a lot of assumptions about contractors, and a lot of the assumptions are wrong." Those are the words of a private security contractor who asked to be referred to only as "Lloyd" for this story because like most of his colleagues he is not authorized to speak to the media.
By Lloyd's count, he has spent some 1,000 days working in Afghanistan in the past four years. He, like many other well-trained military men, decided to leave his position as a Navy SEAL and take his chances finding employment in one of the hot spots around the world where highly skilled contractors were well-paid, and in demand.
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Andrea Martinez, Associate Technical Professional - Civil, traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan to work on a KBR project based at a NATO airfield. Below is an account of her time on the project through her own eyes.
As a civil engineer, I have faced many challenging situations in my career but this opportunity offered me one of my biggest challenges to date. On my first day back in the office after the Christmas holidays last year, I was offered the opportunity to work on the KBR project based at NATO's Kandahar Airfield (KAF) in Afghanistan in the role of Building & Civil Engineering Technical Officer.
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The last big plane left the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Feb. 14. Of the 150 scientists, technicians, and support staff, only 33 men and eight women remained for the winter: six months of darkness, no arriving supplies, average temperatures of -76F. Also: no Wi-Fi or cell phone service. At the South Pole, iPhones become expensive alarm clocks and music players. Sunrise comes on Sept. 21.
Sitting on the ice—as well as buried one mile beneath it—are telescopes and other instruments gathering data to help answer questions about the changing climate here on earth, as well as the origins of the universe. The first direct evidence of cosmic inflation—the idea that the cosmos experienced exponential growth in its first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second—came from a telescope at the South Pole called BICEP2 (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization.)
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When deployed troops buy whatever they need, if they pay in cash, they won't be given pennies, nickels, dimes, or quarters as change. Instead, they'll be given cardboard coins (colloquially called "pogs," like the 90s toys). And, now, coin collectors are going crazy for them.
Depending on where in Iraq or Afghanistan troops are stationed, they may have easy access to an AAFES (Army & Air Force Exchange Service) store. Bigger airfields have larger stores that sell all an airman could want — meanwhile, outlying FOBs are just happy that their AAFES truck didn't blow up this month.
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KBRwyle Powers Military Bases with Green Energy
KBRwyle powers military bases throughout the Middle East with solar and wind lights that protect the environment and reduce the cost of fuel and services parts.
"Based on our years of experience working in harsh environments, we were looking for ways to provide exterior lighting without the fuel and maintenance burdens of gasoline or diesel powered light sets," said Mike Flanagan, KBRwyle Vice President for the LOGCAP IV team.
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dod.defense.gov WASHINGTON -- Three retired soldiers were honored at the Pentagon yesterday for exceptional gallantry in action against an armed enemy while serving in Afghanistan as civilian contractors.
Retired Army Master Sgt. William Timothy Nix, retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael Anthony Dunne and retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Brandon Ray Seabolt received the Medal of Valor, the Defense Department’s highest civilian award for valor.
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Neryl Joyce worked in Iraq from 2004 to 2006 — says her “self-belief, courage and a never-say-die attitude” took her from working at Woolworths to becoming a Baghdad bodyguard, but also almost got her killed.
Working for two of the most powerful security companies in Baghdad, Joyce — who had served as a commissioned officer in the Australian Army’s close personal protection unit — was responsible for protecting high-threat targets from assassination and opportune attack in the lead up to, and following, Iraq’s first democratic election since 1953.
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On February 5, 2017 KBR completed an exceptionally significant letter of technical direction (LOTD) from the US Government to organize a special meal on the eve of this year's Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League, for all US soldiers at three military camps in Poland supporting Operation Atlantic Resolve (OAR).
KBR's site leads and dining facility (DFAC) supervisors pulled out all the stops to ensure the soldiers had a terrific pre-game spread, including steak, chicken wings, burgers and hotdogs. Several soldiers commented they felt like they were back at home tailgating with their family and friends – which the KBR team considered the highest praise.
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By Ed O'Keefe — Interested in working for the U.S. government in Iraq? Though the dangers are obvious, the pay and perks can be pretty good.
Federal employees and contractors serving here face an almost-daily barrage of rocket attacks, the inability to travel freely, scorching hot temperatures and other cultural and linguistic limitations. But workers with the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development and other federal agencies keep on coming, especially as the U.S. presence here becomes more of a civilian affair.
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When and where did you teach abroad? Did you go with a program?
I decided to go abroad to teach English after a life-changing event in 2003. The stress of working 70-hour workweeks as a computer engineer for years had left me obese and extremely unhealthy. I had a minor heart attack at the age of 33 and my doctor informed me that if I did not dramatically change my life I would not live to see 40. I started a week-long course to get my TESOL certificate three days later and had a contract lined up the following week. Within a month, I was on a plane to Yangshuo, China – one of the most amazing places on the planet.
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The Amundsen–Scott Station is located at the South Pole, the southernmost place on the Earth. It is the only place on the land surface of the Earth where the sun is continuously up for six months and then continued down for six months. (The only other such place is at the North Pole, on the sea ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.) Thus, during each year, this station experiences one extremely long "day" and one extremely long "night".
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BY: BARBARA ELLESTAD — “God kept us there for a reason,” said Kris “Tanto” Paronto about the night the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi fell to a terrorist attack Sep. 11, 2012. “Three of us were supposed to leave 10 days earlier. If we had left on schedule I believe the casualty count would have been higher.”
Speaking in a very personable and often-times humorous manner to an audience of about 150 people at the Oasis Golf Course clubhouse Saturday night Feb. 13, Paronto recounted the hours leading up to and during the attack in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and others were killed.
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Private Military Contractors (PMC), or private military or a security company, provides military and armed security services. These combatants are commonly known as mercenaries, though modern-day PMCs euphemistically prefer to refer to their staff as security contractors or private military contractors.
The services and expertise offered by PMCs are typically similar to those of governmental, military or police forces, most often on a smaller scale. While PMCs often provide services to train or supplement official armed forces in service of governments, they can also be employed by private companies to provide bodyguards for key staff or protection of company premises, especially in hostile territories.
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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.
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Because it lies in the southern hemisphere, seasons in Antarctica are the opposite of seasons in the north. Summer runs from October to February and winter covers the remainder of the year. The last plane left Antarctica around Febuary 15, 2015. For about the next six months a staff of cooks, facilities workers, and a handful of scientists ( SEARCH JOBS IN ANTARCTICA ) — will see only darkness beyond the station's windows. At the South Pole, the sun sets in March and doesn't rise again until austral summer returns, in September.
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For the past five years, Camp Atterbury has been home to the Individual Readiness Deployment Operation Program, processing over 400 contractors a week since 2010. This past week Camp Atterbury and the IRDO staff received its final flight of civilian contractors for the redeployment process.
Camp Atterbury, located in Edinburgh, Indiana, began as a mobilization platform in 1941 with the purchase by the Army of over 700 family farms and five rural communities in Central Indiana. Atterbury rose from the once-fertile farmland to prepare troops for service in World War II. Divisions and units from across the country, all of them with specialties ranging from artillery to engineering to tank battalions and chemical companies, arrived at Atterbury for basic and advanced training that would prepare them for service overseas.
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