Anybody been deployed with any of the common contract companies? Looking for good and bad info about being in country!!
Afgan with a contract company?
- Thread starter Torched_03
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You mean with a company like Flour, CACI, ISI, etc. or with an actual afghan owned company like zocc, aocc, scrc, etc.?
There are a number of threads about contracting and the ups and downs. right now I would not go to afghanistan on a bet. I did my time in multi man tents and huts when I first got to iraq 8 years ago .. not much interested in doing it again
I'll be leaving in June but will be attached to the 2-6 Kiowa unit out of Hawaii... I hear contractor life isn't that bad and the $$$ is great.
I've done multiple tours in Iraq as a DoD civilian and military. I'm currently in Afghanistan as a contractor. I've had a room to myself and shared a tent with no walls with 120 guys. Either way it's not bad. Obviously it's better having a room to yourself, but it's never been bad. I did convoy security each time I was deployed in the military and a lot of times we slept in our 998's and 1152's....so I had it worse than most, but it still wasn't bad.
Afghanistan is similar to Iraq. How safe it is depends on where you're at. So if you know where the job is at, then I'd be able to tell you how safe it is (especially if it's in the Ghazni or Paktika province). I'm currently at Sharana and it's pretty safe here....granted the word "safe" is a relative term. If you've never been outside the US then it's probably really bad.....compared to my military days where we were getting shot and blown up on a weekly basis, Sharana is a joke.
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Where at in Afghanistan? Contractor quality of life varies greatly as does pay and benefits. Some contractors in Afghan make 120-150 and others are making over 350k.
Kandahar is where i'll spend most of my time but will fly out to some of the other FOBs depending on where the unit is split up. I know the living conditions wont be ideal but it comes with the job...
I have been out here 8 years straight. Up until now I have gone home once a year for vaction. what you did in the military is kind of irrelevant since we are talking about civilians. Military life kind of prepares you for what you get. If I had a dime for every civilian that came out here and turned around a few months later because they couldn't cut it I would have gone home several years ago. when I got to IRAQ there were 29 of us and all our gear (we were told to pack for a year in Nov 03) in a single tent. we then moved to 15 in a tent and it slowly got better over time. I have had a room to myself for the last 3 years or so. but you always have the "we need you to move in with a roommate" hanging over your head. Our company had people moved out of their rooms and into 100 man tents in Afghanistan. As I said, Benn there done that won't do it again. Unless, of course, I don't find a job in Teas wheh I get back.
How bad it is will depend on who you are in a tent / bay with or who your roommate(s) is/are. When you are in a tent with even 10 guys and half of them are assholes it can be a lot worse than "not that bad".
Most of Iraq is a joke anymore I was on Balad in 03-05 and it was a mess. people getting killed on base often. shrapnel and debris landing on the roof of the tent / trailer I was living in more than a few times. Our company has been very lucky in that we only lost 1 that I know of to mortar fire. We have lost a couple of others but they never announced the cause.
and yeah ... if you have never been outside the U.S. or away from your parents, or aren't prepared to hit the deck when you start hearing mortars coming in Iraq / Afghanistan is probably not the place to start LOL .
I am NOT saying that others shouldn't consider Afghanistan, but wth the current political bullshit, the fact I have been in Iraq 8 years now, what I hear from other employees of my company about living conditions .. it's not for me at this point in time. And anyone considering it should consider very carefully before they head out.
Having been in Iraq and Afghanistan as military/DoD civlian/contractor, I can tell you that it's not much different.
I agree with you that if you're in a tent of 10-120 people, it really depends on who's around you. If you're around people you like vs people you hate it makes a world of difference.
Afghanistan is not any worse than Iraq. I actually feel safer in Afghanistan than I did in Iraq. I rarely hear IED's, VBIED's go off in Afghanistan whereas I was woke up at least 5 or 6 times each week in Iraq. No matter where I was (Mosul, Balad, Victory, Normand). Perimeter safety is more of a concern in Afghanistan.
I actually tell people the exact opposite. Afghanistan is actually safer. When the US troops started drawing down in Iraq at the end of 2010 in Iraq, Mosul started getting hit A LOT more often. At that time I moved to Afghanistan. I plan to stay in Afghanistan till the Afghani's start doing security. The day they start providing security is the month before I leave.
I'm not even going to get into the fact that American's can't provide security for their bases.
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safety was never my concern in either place, to be honest. there are things that happened early on that some of my family still doesn't know about and would freak them if I told the story esp. my Mother lol. I told my Dad most of it because as a retired E-9 he could understand shit the rest of them won't, can't or don't want to.
yeah but as the U.S. starts to pull out it will go just like Iraq has. Attacks on bases will go up so some taliban commander can say he drove the Americans out of wherever. I am not saying that is a reason to leave just something to prepare for. you are likely prepared .. others not so much LOL
yeah and that can be laid at directly at the feet of the bleeding hear librools and the Army. Once they quit kicking ass and taking names evertime there was an attack things got worse before they got better
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