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I worked with seals on a few projects, back when Blackwater was a thing and also more recently, and I wonder what kind of job offers these guys are getting afte

I worked with seals on a few projects, back when Blackwater was a thing and also more recently, and I wonder what kind of job offers these guys are getting after they leave the military. Or, frighteningly, while they’re still in it. The number and variety of corporate and private mercenary forces is much higher than most people would suspect. The size of Special Operations Command in the active duty US military is also much, much, much larger than most Americans realize.

zerkten 6y ago
I casually follow this topic and have observed this growth. How do people in SOC feel about this growth? Is part of the issue that the specialists are sidelined in the growth of the bureaucracy? To an outsider it seems like a startup that's been swallowed up by an enterprise company. For the programmers at the startup they had a lot of autonomy, but now most don't have this. Other opportunities seem exciting and there is a feeling that many others are living off the success that you felt you created. I'm sure that's a bad analogy, but it's hard to know from the outside unless you have military links in the US.
CapricornNoble 6y ago
>>I wonder what kind of job offers these guys are getting after they leave the military. Or, frighteningly, while they’re still in it. They're getting gigs as paid assassins, moonlighting as military officers in other nations' Direct Action missions so they can pull in $25k/month. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-...
unhomedcoder 6y ago
SOCOM is around 100,000 soldiers. only the top 20 countries have militaries with more than 200,000 soldiers. if SOCOM was its own military, it would be bigger than 90% of the militaries in the world.
kilroy123 6y ago
Yes, and this was heavily expanded by the Obama administration. Which has always been one of my criticisms about him. When I tell people this, I get blank stares.

zerkten 6y ago

I casually follow this topic and have observed this growth. How do people in SOC feel about this growth? Is part of the issue that the specialists are sidelined in the growth of the bureaucracy? To an outsider it seems like a startup that's been swallowed up by an enterprise company. For the programmers at the startup they had a lot of autonomy, but now most don't have this. Other opportunities seem exciting and there is a feeling that many others are living off the success that you felt you created. I'm sure that's a bad analogy, but it's hard to know from the outside unless you have military links in the US.

CapricornNoble 6y ago

>>I wonder what kind of job offers these guys are getting after they leave the military. Or, frighteningly, while they’re still in it. They're getting gigs as paid assassins, moonlighting as military officers in other nations' Direct Action missions so they can pull in $25k/month. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-...

unhomedcoder 6y ago

SOCOM is around 100,000 soldiers. only the top 20 countries have militaries with more than 200,000 soldiers. if SOCOM was its own military, it would be bigger than 90% of the militaries in the world.

kilroy123 6y ago

Yes, and this was heavily expanded by the Obama administration. Which has always been one of my criticisms about him. When I tell people this, I get blank stares.