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I am currently working with some vets in San Diego (many from USNAVSPECWAR down in south SD where i live and also some of the USMC local communities near Camp Pendleton etc) and since the beginning of the program, I have noticed it's becoming a huge success. Lots of these guys have been either recently wounded etc and/or are no longer able to perform their duties and so I decided to gather em all together to engage in fun activites like playing video games, watching films and having discussions, going out together, and most recently, engaging in creative writing (which has been a stunning success as many of these guys have amazing stories).
Anyways, a weird side effect of this has been a new writing project that I've started with a few of the guys from the SOF community as well as some of my long time friends who work in private security firms here and in neighboring areas.
So a while back, I began (with their help) started writing an ebook series called "BEYOND DANGER CLOSE: The Private Wars in Mexico" and we have just finished the first three installments. Its kinda like Tears of the Sun meets Breaking Bad meets Savages (that new oliver stone flick...although i haven't seen it yet it seems to cover a similar topic w/ the Cartels here where i live).
Anyways, I wanted the Ground Branch communities' opinion on this and see if something like this would be of any interest to y'all if it were to be released. My older brother does web design for NavySEALs.com and SEALFIT.com and so we are thinking about releasing it (at first) thru this site possibly.
The story follows TRUE EVENTS based on many of the former SOF interviewees I have spoken with over the last two years and it tells the story of their involvement in the quasi-covert operations being undertaken because of a new directive and was put together by a joint DoD/DEA/Pentagon committee to contract out several PMCs and private sec firms (like the old SD-based TITAN GROUP and a several others I can't honestly mention for multiple reasons). Those sources involved (including some of the DoD officials etc) were mostly only cooperating under the strict condition of anonymity. Because of this, I ended up fictionalizing some aspects of it as well...i.e some names changed, places/settings of certain engagements changed, etc....It had to be done this way to be respectful AND of course, for OPSEC purposes (since there were certain elements assisting in SIGINT/HUMINT etc alongside the PMC's personnel).
The contract and the story behind it (which in a way is very similar to the story of how Executive Outcomes intervened on behalf of several countries back in the 90s to engage hostile rebel forces like the RUF etc) is absolutely unbelievable. As we speak, there is a shooting war going on involving Cartel-hired paramilitary elements (some of whom were actually trained by Iranian IRGC "Al Quds/Quds Force" advisors in Venezuela under the employ of Chavez himself!!). The peak of our guys' op tempo occurred between the '07-'09 time frame and, to me, they are absolute heroes. They came to areas like Neuvo Laredo and Monterey and were able to free numerous towns their with little to no assistance from indigenous LEA and other US LE assets.
The story mostly follows one particular PMC and it's lead element (known as a RATTLR team=Rapid Asymmetric Tactics Team-Lead Response) which is led and composed of mostly former Tier 1 operators from multiple SMUs and other ex-SOF. It could be really interesting imho and I just wanted to know if this series was released in the next few months online, would anyone around here ever think that reading something like that would be neat or even remotely exciting? Or does it sound totally boring?
Edited by TaskForceGreen, 13 July 2012 - 08:46 PM.
