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| Bob Shepherd... |
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| ...and his endeavours. |
Few know that which lies in the dessert -- not buried by the sands, but by reams of shredded paper and fallacious accounts of enemy indiscretion. Anyone who knows much about the War on Terror knows that it's more of a 'war of terror' to begin with. However, who really cares to tell the tale? With the private security industry existing in the capacity that it does today, no one has the impetus to tell the truth, nor do they have the responsibility to do so. So who, in the end, is going to pick up the slack for the lads on the ground, just making it from one pay cheque to the next, one roadside bombing to the next?
The casualties of war are always the forgotten. To tell their story is a legacy to behest the valour that comes of doing ones job both honestly and well; so from the fray comes a soldier -- an ex-SAS operative -- to tell the stories those of us without proper clearance would normally not be privy to. In this case, the man's name is Bob Shepherd.
Mr. Shepherd became a best selling author after his cold and candid account of the private security industry's involvement on the 'War on Terror' hit the shelves to a marketplace otherwise hungry for Andy McNab's accounts of SAS operations. Bob, however, respectfully declines to make brazen anecdotes concerning an otherwise honourable annal of military history. Focusing instead on scoundrels who play soldier and have no allegiance to any entity who isn't paying their way. We all need to work, but considering the auspices under which close protection operates in hostile environments, one can not hope to expect to be well looked after when at the muzzle of an entire industry which is the same as any consumer or fuel industry: provided to make money at any cost.
Bob's books are readily available through Bob Shepherd's Blog and are worth a serious and thoughtful read. His are accounts of mishap and misrule from our very own homeland through to chivalry and expedience by those who would otherwise be our foes. He is a man not to be taken lightly, and neither is his non-fiction or his literary strides to explicate a world of war in which either side are no different than the other -- humans and humanity, even when at odds, need venture into equity... if only to know we're sometimes fighting ourselves rather than a phantom aggressor.
