We lost an extraordinary friend and ally: Paul Behrends, 1958-2020

I wrote this as a tribute to one of my best friends who just died. In another age and place, Paul Behrends would have been straight out of Rudyard Kipling. The extraordinary life of the retired US Marine Corps reserve lieutenant colonel and longtime congressional staffer ended December 12 when Paul died from injuries near … Read more

Green police, Part 2: Tribesmen defend themselves against gangsters & government

by J Michael Waller / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / March 7, 2016. Continuation from part 1, published February 25, 2016. CHERÁN, MEXICO – Some rural Mexicans working in the United States are heading home to revive the forests of their ancestral homeland. Among them are illegal immigrants who found that life can be better back home. They … Read more

Green police, Part 1: Mexican tribesmen take up arms to protect their forests from crooked officials & cartels

by J Michael Waller / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / February 25 and March 7, 2016. I visited Cherán and walked the mountainside with the guardabosques, writing a two-part series for the American Media Institute that appeared February 25 and 26. Here are the stories, as published in the Lubbock (Texas) Avalanche-Journal: Part 1: “Green Police: Mexican tribesmen save their forests from … Read more

An officer and a businessman: Captain Parrott and his guns

by J Michael Waller / Serviam / December 30, 2008. After a successful if rather uneventful career as a U.S. Army artillery officer, Capt. Robert Parker Parrott went into the private sector. That’s where his real contribution to American national defense began. Thanks to his West Point education and his 12 years as a commissioned officer, Parrott amassed … Read more

The contract flyers of World War I

by J Michael Waller / Serviam / March-April 2008.* With war raging on the other side of the world, Charlie Meyers left his home in Brooklyn and headed for Canada’ Not to avoid a military draft, but to go and fight. The United States had not yet entered World War l, and Meyers, a young flier during … Read more

Partnership against heroin: Contractors help US combat narcotraffickers in Afghanistan

by J Michael Waller / Serviam / March 1, 2008. Download PDF: Contractors_Afgh_Serviam Kabul, Afghanistan—“I used to wear a burqa. I will never wear one again. Except to fight drug traffickers.” That’s what a female police officer of Afghanistan’s Narcotics Interdiction Unit (NIU) says with a shy smile. The bad guys can’t recognize a heavily armed cop under … Read more

Accountability and private security contractors: Visibility is key to success

by J Michael Waller / Serviam / November-December 2007, When a private contractor for the U.S. government abides with the letter of the law, but the law is so flawed that it doesn’t correspond with reality, whose fault is it? The contractor’s, of course. That’s the apparent reasoning of critics in Congress and the press who blame private … Read more

Private security contractors in America: 400 years and counting

by J. Michael Waller / Serviam / September-October 2007. The soldier-turned-private-contractor arrived in Virginia in shackles and leg irons. A war hero who fought an Islamic army, he had left the military with a sense of mission and adventure. Now he was part of a private, government-chartered company to lead security operations in an inhospitable part of … Read more