Have Gun, Will Travel

Guns For Hire

A big part of prepping for some people is the gun.  From Walter Mitty-types living in their moms' basements and using Call of Duty as their training tools; to those who have grown up around guns hunting, target shooting, competing, maybe having served a hitch in the service; to the real-life Rambos who are highly trained and experienced in the combat arts; and every type of prepper between... guns and the skills to use them effectively are important to most of us.

Reading Soldier of Fortune back in high school, I saw many of the classified ads featuring "ex-soldier looking for domestic or international high-risk assignments" and the like.  This was before the series of lawsuits in the late 80s put an end to that category of advertisement.

When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I had served my time in the Marine Corps, and was a pretty experienced cop.  A couple of acquaintances had hooked up with DynCorp and the UN and were pulling overseas training gigs for $100,000 a year, tax free.  I looked into it, but it really didn't seem like the right thing for me (what with my contempt for the UN and all).  The one guy I know is still doing it, he must be rolling in dough, but he lost his marriage in doing so.

The next thing I looked into was the Le'gion e'trange're.  I called the French embassy in DC and asked for information on joining the French Foreign Legion.  They were legally unable to answer my questions, but gave me an address in France to write to requesting information.  I sent away and got a big envelope full of brochures and pamphlets.  Nowadays, like everything else, there is a website for it.  I briefly worked with a deputy sheriff who had been both a Marine and a Legionnaire.

I also had the idea of becoming a game warden in South Africa.  A call to their embassy got me a couple of brochures and a page torn from the Johannesburg phone book.  I had this mental image of me, dressed all in khaki, toting an FN-FAL hunting poachers in the preserve, while retiring to my camp to sit on a chair framed from elephant tusks and upholstered in lion hide... OK, the Walter Mitty thing can affect any of us.

All of these ideas were fleeting.  My police career was doing fine, getting promoted to sergeant and then lieutenant.  Y2K came and passed, and then 9/11.  The war in Afghanistan and Iraq started up, and the "private contractor" became the hired gun of the new millennium. 

Today, I'm happy at home.  I have my wonderful wife and a job that I enjoy.  I have some friends who have gone overseas as contractors and made some good jack, and came back with some amazing experiences that they have converted into some high speed training and supplier jobs.  If you are in the mind that it might be a viable option for you, I recently found a website called http://www.shooterjobs.com/ that you need a subscription to get the details of the jobs, but lets anyone see the basic information.  There are all kinds of gigs in the $150,000 to $250,000 a year range.