In fact, apart from the annoying Baidu Encyclopedia, a lot of public information can be found online.
The main founders of Blackwater are Eric Prince, a retired Navy SEAL from a right-wing wealthy family, and his predecessor El Clark when he served in SEAL Team 8. Compared with companies such as MPRI, Deyang International, and Armor Group, Blackwater is only a small and medium-sized enterprise.
In 1997, Prince used the huge inheritance he just received to buy approximately 24 square kilometers of swampland in Kirktuck County, North Carolina, and built a training facility and accommodation facilities. The training ground within the stadium opened in May 1998. The training company is named Blackwater, a reference to the color of the local marshes. Shortly after its establishment, the company began contracting training for naval special forces, and also provided on-the-job training services to the FBI and police agencies across the country. However, because the location of the training ground was originally a wildlife reserve, from the establishment of Blackwater until today, environmental groups and anti-war organizations have always opposed the existence of the Blackwater training ground. Therefore, Blackwater has always emphasized that it will not build a training ground in this training ground. Conduct demolition training and use of tracer rounds. During the California wildfires in October 2007, Blackwater placed more than 300 nearby residents in training companies to improve its public image.
After the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999, Blackwater immediately launched training for school gunfight environments and trained more than a thousand police officers. As a result, police departments across the country knew that Blackwater Water Training Company Name. The company's business began to expand rapidly in 2000, but at this time the two founders parted ways. Clark, who was responsible for training, and Prince, who was responsible for business direction, had differences in business philosophy. After Clark quit, he also formed his own training company. .
Blackwater's training ground
Several shooting ranges
The casual bodyguard standing between the suit friends and the military uniform is a Blackwater contractor. This suit My friend is Mr. Paul Bremer, the first colonial governor of the United States in Iraq. His life security in Iraq was contracted to BSC
Because Blackwater contracted the security of several coalition headquarters in Iraq. work, so when the coalition headquarters was attacked by anti-American armed forces, Blackwater's temporary workers would inevitably have to fight back with the soldiers in the headquarters. For example, this photo shows the battle on the coalition headquarters building in Najaf in 2004. This situation is usually regarded by those who oppose PMC as "evidence" that "US soldiers and mercenaries fight side by side".
Prince founded Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC) in 2001. Blackwater contractors are from BSC.
There are two types of security contractor companies: one is PSC and the other is PMC.
PSC is a private security company (Private Security Companies), which provides armed and unarmed security-related services. PMC is the abbreviation of two words, one is Private Military Companies (Private Military Companies) and the other is Private Military Contractor (Private Military Contractor). The former refers to enterprises, and the latter can refer to both enterprises and individual employees within these enterprises.
The services provided by PMC include national defense, military training, and security. Therefore, PMC not only has high-profile security services, but may also have military operations that are not exposed. Some of those employees in PMC may be providing security for the United Nations Food Relief Service, the Red Cross or other similar international relief organizations in an area that has just ended a war; but other employees may be working in another war-torn area at the same time. The region secretly serves as a military instructor, strategic advisor, tactical guide, battlefield command and even directly participates in combat for a certain armed group. Since U.S. PMC companies will indeed go to places where the Pentagon is inconvenient or unwilling to appear on behalf of the U.S. government to complete the task of exporting U.S. military and diplomatic influence to the world, some U.S. PMC companies are indeed considered to be the U.S. government to a certain extent. secret troops.
After the U.S.-British coalition overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime, due to the close relationship between Blackwater’s senior executives and right-wing figures in the U.S. government and Congress, there were people above who could do things easily—Blackwater successfully obtained the company without any bidding. Paul Bremer's security mission, in addition to a few other small projects, but at this time the company's security business was not very large. Then the 2004 Fallauje incident occurred, which was unfortunate for the four security contractors who were whipped to death. However, it was precisely because of this incident that the world-famous Blackwater Company was created. Since then, Blackwater has received a steady stream of security contracts, allowing the company to expand rapidly and become a well-known PMC. In addition to security contracting, Blackwater is said to have secret military contracts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan.
Even though it has expanded rapidly, Blackwater's industry status, turnover, and company size are far less than those of the aforementioned large companies. However, unlike its low-key counterparts, Blackwater frequently appears in the public media. Although most of these news are negative, such as the ambush of Falouj, shooting of civilians, etc., just like advertisements such as Melatonin, even if No matter how bad it is, people will be impressed the more they hear it. Perhaps it is for these reasons that there is almost no military fan in China who does not know the name "Blackwater".
In fact, Blackwater is somewhat unjust. Blackwater is not the only security contractor that shoots civilians. For example, on October 11, 2007, the security contractor provided by Deyang Group for the US State Department killed a man in Baghdad. A taxi driver. But Blackwater was too public, so almost all media cameras focused on them. Some media even went undercover to dig up news materials from the company. For another example, after Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater sent 250 contractors into New Orleans, mainly responsible for guarding businesses, banks, hotels, factories and wealthy residential areas. Although Blackwater claims that one of its helicopters has rescued 128 people affected by the disaster, some people still accuse New Orleans of already having enough National Guards and local police, and that the local area needs food, drinking water and medicine more than Armed guards. Although Blackwater was not the only PMC involved in disaster relief in New Orleans at that time, it once again became a typical representative and was criticized by the media because it was too conspicuous.
The Blackwater contractors carrying out armed patrols on the streets of New Orleans are...well, temporary workers
The negative news about Blackwater also includes false recruitment advertisements and lack of actual work. To fulfill the contract, for example, a Colombian Blackwater contractor (should we call them "temporary workers" or "migrant workers") complained that the monthly salary they heard when recruiting was 4,000 US dollars, but after being hired, it dropped to 2,700 US dollars. US dollars, but after flying to Iraq it dropped to about US$1,000 per month. And if it is a retired U.S. special forces soldier, the price will be much higher. For example, retired Navy SEAL Scott Helvingston, who was killed in the Fallauje attack, was originally scheduled to earn US$60,000 for two months of work. However, his death was considered to be the result of Blackwater not providing enough support in the mission in order to save money. For example, the contract originally stipulated that armored vehicles would be provided, and each vehicle must have at least three people on board. However, on the day of the accident, one person died *Only four contractors in two ordinary unarmored vehicles. However, this mission was originally very easy, but because they lost their way and turned into an area controlled by anti-American armed forces, when they were ambushed, the vehicle had no armor to protect it, and there was no machine gun. Only one person in each vehicle could use his hand. Carbines fired back, but the entire army was annihilated under the siege of AK, PK and RPG.
Photos of Scott Helvens, who was whipped to death in Fallauje, when he participated in the reality show "COMBAT MISSION"
Due to constant negative news, in order to change the company's image , Blackwater changed its name in October 2007, from Blackwater USA to Blackwater Worldwide, and changed its company logo. However, the bear claw image of the Blackwater logo is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, so changing the name and logo will have little effect. Therefore, in February 2009, the company changed its name again to "Xe" and announced that it would "no longer actively seek" new private security contracts and shift its business focus to training and logistics. Prince also announced on March 2 that he would resign as the company's CEO and will continue to serve as chairman of the board of directors, but will no longer be involved in daily business.
Blackwater's early LOGO
The new LOGO in 2007 changed the crosshairs to "less offensive" horizontal bars and canceled the word "Blackwater"
The new LOGO started in February 2009
The official website’s LOGO has also been changed
The above information is all from D boy’s NetEase blog. There are also many very professional blog posts, you can check them out if you are interested.