Fighting a Parallel War in Iraq, Private Contractors Are Officially Invisible

While we think we know what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, we really don't know very much. We know even less when it comes to the contractors and other civilians there. They come home wounded, often having to fight for their wounds to be taken care of through Workman's Comp, expecting the company they were employed by to do the right thing, but all too often, that doesn't happen. They die there and we don't know how many have been killed or died there. This may help to understand when it comes to the two occupations, we know hardly nothing. It would be great if the media would report on some of the contractors coming back and being abandoned by their employers but since very few reporters have bothered to report on the military, that is not very likely to happen.

Soldier of Misfortune
Fighting a Parallel War in Iraq, Private Contractors Are Officially Invisible -- Even in Death
By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 1, 2008; Page C01

Adapted from "Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq" (Da Capo Press, 2008)


As US Airways Flight 1860 eased into Gate 4 at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, the pilot's voice came over the intercom: "Can I please have your attention? We are carrying with us tonight the remains of a fallen American in Iraq. Please remain seated for the movement of the remains and for the American escorts to deplane."

The cabin fell silent. No one moved as the two men seated in the first row rose to gather their belongings. They were the white-gloved master sergeant who had accompanied Jonathon Coté's body from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and the American drug enforcement agent who, after a 16-month search, had recovered the headless corpse in southern Iraq.

The two men were led down to the tarmac, and the master sergeant climbed up into the belly of the plane. He draped an American flag over the silver casket and made sure that Coté's body was placed feet-first on the conveyor belt.

There was a light drizzle, the temperature at 40 degrees. A bitter wind blew off Lake Erie, snapping a half-dozen flags held by members of the Patriot Guard Riders of New York, a biker group that supports the families of fallen Americans. Police flashers and a Buffalo TV crew's equipment threw light and shadows over the plane. From the ground you could see the passengers, still frozen in their seats in the lighted cabin, and the baggage handlers, waiting off to the side in fluorescent orange vests and knitted caps.

I stood with Jon's family beneath the wing, buffeted by the freezing wind. Five men and one woman from New York's 107th Air National Guard lifted the casket from the belt and slowly marched it across the tarmac to an idling hearse.


Anyone watching might have thought they were witnessing the somber homecoming of an American hero killed in Iraq. That was technically true: Jonathon Coté had fought in the U.S. Army. He was killed in Iraq.

But it was far more complicated than that.
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