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"They were a different breed from the "yee-haw cowboys" that filled Blackwater's ranks, and their tattoos indicated backgrounds in elite military units like Marine Recon, the Navy SEALs, and the Green Berets."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/blackwaters-world-warcraft

"They’re not clean-shaven, as many soldiers are. They wear wraparound Ray-Ban sunglasses. Some of them have goatees. They’re very, very pumped up, tattooed individuals. It’s the essence of a sort of cartoonish Rambo
running around Iraq."
http://prairieweather.typepad.com/the_scribe/2007/09/the-blackwater-.h
tml

"WMR has also learned that a Blackwater security operative infiltrated the presidential campaigns of former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and Representative Ron Paul (R-TX). The operative, who was permitted to carry loaded weapons at televised presidential debates featuring other candidates, including Secret Service-protected candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as Senators John McCain, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd, Representative Dennis Kucinich, and former Governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, also served in Iraq and had close ties with the Israeli Defense Force. The Secret Service refused to interfere with the Blackwater employee’s access to the presidential candidates of both parties, claiming that whom presidential candidates chose to have as their personal security members was their business. The Blackwater employee also was permitted to fly on regularly-scheduled commercial flights with the loaded weapons. The employee’s affiliations were not much of a secret as one source reported that he had a “huge Star of David” tattooed on his chest.
https://civiliancontractors.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/cia-used-blackwat
er-linked-mercenaries-as-journalists/

"One Iraqi says: 'They became a symbol of what was seen as an occupying force. They are always heavily armed with machine-guns, and wear body armour and wraparound sunglasses. Usually they are beefy men with goatees, covered in tattoos. 'They swagger around like something out of a movie. Their presence here has been deeply damaging.' 'At that time, it was like the Wild West out here. They recruited a lot of rednecks from Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and so forth, and they were a bit too trigger happy. It's not surprising they got into trouble.' Born into a wealthy family in Michigan on June 6, 1969, young Prince was brought up by his self-made billionaire father under a 'hard work, family and God' ethos. Prince obtained his pilot's licence at 17, and served as an intern at the White House under the first President Bush, later saying: 'I saw a lot of things I didn't agree with - homosexual groups being invited in, the Clean Air Act, those kinds of bills.' The family then sold their company for $1.3 billion, giving Prince the money to set up Blackwater. In 1997, he bought 6,000 acres of the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina, where he set up a state-of-the-art training camp, located near SEAL and Delta Force bases. Unsurprisingly, business boomed after 9/11."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205625/Blackwater-worlds-bigg
est-private-army-faces-terrible-charge--crusade-wipe-Muslims.html

"Soldiers from an Army unit that had 10 infantrymen accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter after returning to civilian life described a breakdown in discipline during their Iraq deployment in which troops murdered civilians, a newspaper reported Sunday. "It’s almost like a religious experience to see a battlefield," he said. "To hear the explosions — to see a person bleeding out and die — see everything on fire and smell the smoke and burning flesh. It makes you truly realize what it is to be alive. Combat is the biggest rush you can have." Since the start of his first deployment, he had covered himself in tattoos. On his arm was a memorial to his sergeant killed by a car bomb. On his wrists were red dotted "kill lines" marking where, if needed, he could slit them. On his arm were the twin lightning bolts of the Nazi SS. Wrapping his neck like a collar were the words "BORN TO KILL, READY TO DIE."
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=121074.0

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