Milbloggers, Blackwater and Operation Envy Continues

With all the hoopla about the NFL Color Guard Flap, I completely forgot about Operation Envy, you know the operation where I went to Blackwater in North Carolina and drove cars fast and shot their guns for the day! Yeah that Operation Envy.

Susan Katz Keating has a great post up about our time prepping for the range, and I can attest, it was f’ing cold, I don’t think my fingers ever hurt so much trying to load a magazine, as they did that day. And here I thought I was going to NC to avoid the cold!

Before I go any further, let me say this up front. If the only thing you know about Blackwater is the Nisoor Square incident …you are doing yourself a disservice not investigating this corporation further. While I can not discuss everything we saw and heard there, let me simply say that the security services Blackwater provides is but a small percentage of the work they do, a very small percentage. Blackwater is foremost a training facility, and if it’s world-class, first-rate training you want, Blackwater is the outfit to provide it. They operate on a can do attitude, and if they can’t do it when you talk to them, they will find a way to do it in days. Yes I said days, not weeks or even months. As we learned on our tour, their turn around time is at time mere hours from saying yes to delivery, and in almost every case they are taking on the job because either the Government can’t do it or they can’t do it fast enough.

But back to the range, and more importantly how you can get in on one of these trips.

As Susan noted we loaded our magazines, and approached the firing line. For an old-timer trained to shot a pistol standing sideways to the target and extending your arm towards the target, learning to shoot two-handed standing square to the target, with both eyes open was a challenge, but our instructor, was very patient and had us shooting two to the chest and one to the head in no time. One magazine expended and I didn’t even need my gloves anymore, the excitement was taking over!

Up next: Fast Cars and Hot Laps