"Battle born"
Former SEAL finds work in Iraq with local military contractor
BY VALERIE MILLER

Contractor James "Doc" Beard is happy to do a phone interview to talk about his work. Of course, something might come up, he cautions -- like an hour-or-more wait to use the phone, a storm, a power outage ... or a bombing.

"All the normal war stuff," the 47-year-old Las Vegan said, via one of his e-mail dispatches from Baghdad. Beard has been in the Iraqi capital since June 29, working as a medic and the in-country manager for a clinic that treats other contractors.

Most of those contractors are in Iraq to dispose of the millions of tons of unexploded munitions left over from the two Gulf Wars, as well as munitions that go back two decades to the Iran-Iraq War. As Beard puts it, unexploded ordinance "just litters this country after decades of war with Iran and its neighbors." If left for insurgents to find, those munitions are used against U.S. troops and other coalition forces, as well as on the Iraqi people themselves.

Beard is one of some 20,000 or so contractors in Iraq. In recent years, the Pentagon has increasingly relied on contract staff for logistics and other functions that can be outsourced to the private sector. From cleaning up leftover explosives to tending to the wounded and the sick, civilians are finding work in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beard has done three tours in Iraq as a contractor. Four months ago, he flew to Jordan and took a 100-passenger Fokker jet to Baghdad for $500. The Las Vegan is working for Nevada-based EMERG (Emergency Medicine Tactical Resources Group) International, Tactical Medical Solutions. The firm found Beard through a Web site listing former special-operations forces for hire as contractors.

The money isn't bad, he says. Working as a medic this time around, Beard gets "$500 dollars and some change" per day for his seven-day-a-week job. Some make as much as $700 a day. "A doc never gets a day off," Beard explained.

A CLINIC IN BAGHDAD

As a former Navy SEAL and veteran of the first Gulf War, Beard was no stranger to Iraq when he started freelancing. On his first tour, in early 2005, he was an independent combat medic and tactical trainer for the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team and the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team. They provided training to 2,800 Iraqi police who were slated to take over for U.S. forces.

Serving in the same capacity as a physician, the Las Vegan provided primary and trauma care to the Iraqi cadets and their instructors, as well as to U.S. Army personnel. A U.S. Navy unit eventually arrived and took over his Army patients. On his second tour, Beard worked for Explosive Ordinance Disposal Technology as a firearms instructor, medic and protective-force supervisor. He trained 360 former Ugandan soldiers to replace U.S. troops.

While Beard was recruited for the skills he had learned in the military, the dire need for contractors has led to dangerous hires in some cases, he said. "Unfortunately, due to the demand, there is a lack of real talent in some areas of security contracting," Beard recounted. "Incidences of friendly fire, even during training, have been documented. There are a lot of former military people who have never been in real combat, that consider themselves 'top-level trainers and operators.' But 80 percent of the force that is 'out here' you would want on your side."

"Doc" Beard runs a medical clinic at Camp Slayer. It's located on the Victory Base Complex, on the western side of Baghdad. There he sees and treats all manner of illnesses, from sinus complaints to out-of-control infections. Fierce winds that propel thick, Iraqi dirt through the air make a mere shaving cut a potentially life-threatening injury.

"I've seen a guy lose an arm or leg because of something that could have been a blister," Beard recalled. As a medic, he is allowed to do medical procedures, including digit amputations, at his clinic.

"We are like an administrative way-station here," he explained last July. "Obviously, there are almost daily bombings, in nearby neighborhoods, that rock our tents. We get mortared occasionally." By the fall, the violence picked up with the start of the Islamic holiday Ramadan.

"I've been here for three Ramadans and this was the worst," he recalled. "They kicked it off the first day. There were four (soldiers) killed right outside here."

It's almost chow time when the contractor gets to use the phone. One thing you can never complain about at his camp is the food, according to Beard. Unlike casino buffets, the guilt that comes with eating the food doesn't revolve around increased waistlines.

"The old saying is 'an army fights on its stomach.' Here, on at Camp Slayer, the food is excellent; excessive actually. Sometimes, I wonder how many lives are at risk on daily convoys to provide the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, and us contractors such a wide variety," Beard wrote in August. "The chow halls, modern term DFAC [for dining facility], are truly like mini (L)as (V)egas buffets. The KBR workers, hired from many different developing nations [read: 3rd world wages], bust their ass to provide us with great meals."

NOT A PALATIAL LIFESTYLE

It's mid-October and Beard is calling again from Camp Slayer. Its Victory Base Complex location is infamous -- the site of Saddam Hussein's former summer-palace complex. The palatial setting has a history that could turn stomachs. "(Saddam) built 37 (palaces) in this country; obscene on the outside and kinda cheesy on the inside ... (H)e even has a rape island with a mini-palace on it where he and his sons raped women; also, one of Uday's torture chambers is here at (their) part of the summer palace. (A)ll the stuff is sealed off now," Beard wrote.

There are 10 palaces on the site but Beard sleeps in a tent -- or tries to sleep: "What's really funny about life in tents is the noise from generators; none of our camps have the power-plant generated electricity that all of you take for granted," he explains in his August correspondence.

"(T)he noise from generators, I'm not talking little Hondas for your backyard BBQ, I mean big-ass 20 ft. x 10ft x 15 ft. monsters with two exhaust pipes the size of sewers belching diesel and noise 24/7. The noise will sometimes steal your thoughts. If you want an example of the conditions under which we sleep. Take your lawn mower and fire it up in your living room and run it a full throttle all night. Close your bedroom door, it might help a little. Now imagine your walls are made of thin canvas. You could also pour some fuel in your bedroom to give you that nice tactical generator smell."

The nearly four months in Iraq, coupled with two previous tours as a contractor, seem to be getting to the veteran. Beard says he's "tired of getting shelled" and calls the war "Vietnam, the sequel."

"This is an insurgent war, a guerilla war," Beard said on the phone from Baghdad. "You have to fight unconventional with unconventional."

That probably wouldn't be pretty. "(The military) would have to get very violent and kill a lot of bad guys," the former SEAL surmised. Granted, Beard doesn't expect the Bush Administration to seek his advice. "I don't think George wants to sit down with me and ask for my ideas."

Beard says he expects to have contractor work as long as he is physically able to do it. He received a medical discharge from the Navy after a helicopter crash and a parachute accident. He flew out in June a newlywed, leaving behind his new bride, Susan. A Clark County governmental employee, she is counting the days until her husband's early November arrival home. He'll be flyng here via a U.S. embassy flight from Baghdad to Jordan.

Susan Beard hopes her husband will be around for the holidays but says there is no shortage of work options for the former Navy SEAL. Up next, "Afghanistan -- it's either that or Japan, China or the Caribbean. He gets quite a few offers."

vmiller@lvbusinesspress.com | 702-871-6780 x331


Ellie