TO THE OTHER SIDE

Mercenary turned monk passes away


His story is remarkable - S.L.


From the






An American soldier of fortune who later became a monk in Thailand and helped hundreds of people overcome alcohol and drug addictions at the world famous Thamkrabok Temple in Thailand has passed away.

A spokesman for the temple said Phra Gordon, also known as Gordon Baltimore of Harlem or the "Black Monk", died on April 20 in hospital.


He said temple staff were working with the US embassy in Bangkok to locate Phra Gordon's family, which was difficult as the monk no longer had a passport.


In Thai, "Phra" (pronounced PRAH) is the honorific title for a monk - S.L.


Phra Gordon had lived at the temple for almost three decades, devoting himself to helping people overcome their addictions through a "tough love" rehabilitation program.




Wat Thamkrabok (pronounced TAHM-kra-boke) -I have visited this temple myself and witnessed their methods first hand - more than simply "tough love"; herbal-induced purging and daily saunas, combined with Buddhist spiritualism successfully rehabilitates heroin addicts and alcoholics - S.L.


Irish writer and teacher Paul Garrigan writes on his website of how with his loud US accent, keen sense of humour and large frame, Phra Gordon was far from a typical monk.

Garrigan describes the remarkable story of how Phra Gordon came to be at the temple; the Harlem, New York native was once a mercenary and admitted he had killed many people.

"He was on his way to join another army when he found himself at Thamkrabok temple. This was not a planned visit, but the bus he was traveling on experienced flat tires right outside the temple.

"While he was waiting for the wheels to be fixed, he went for a walk and met the head monk. To his amazement, this stranger in Buddhist robes informed Gordon that he was expected and that he would now be joining the temple.

"For some reason, Gordon accepted the revelation and ordained. He had no intention of staying there so long but the time never felt right to leave."

Phra Gordon said in an interview with the Washington Post that growing up in Harlem in the 1950s and '60s and as a nine-year-old watching a man die from an overdose turned him away from drugs.

He said he joined the merchant marines at age 16, and during a stopover in Penang (Malaysia) he met Bob Denard, a French mercenary who was recruiting fighters.




French soldier-of-fortune Bob Denard, in the early sixties.


"Being an American black, they think you know everything about guns," Phra Gordon said, while admitting he didn't.

He participated in some major conflicts, but after a brush with death in Namibia he decided to give up the life of a mercenary.

After a long journey around the world, Phra Gordon arrived in Thailand, took a bus ride out of Bangkok and just wandered into the grounds of Wat Thamkrabok.

"I'm not crazy," he said, recalling the day. "But I heard someone say 'You've come here at last.' After the war and all that, I got a feeling of peace.

"After Harlem and the life of a mercenary," he said, "this was the last stop for me."




Wat Thamkrabok directly translates as "the-Temple-Where-You-Do-What-You-Say" - in addition to their successful drug and alcoholism treatment program, a large number of Hmong hill tribe refugees live there - S.L.



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THE SAGA OF THE MERCENARY SOLDIER PART II

Mercenaries are in the headlines again, this week in the madness and insanity that is Qaddafi's Libya. My initial thoughts when I first saw this was that the North African Nutjob had a cadre of Eastern European professional soldiers as a sort of Varangian Guard, but as it turns out Qaddafi's personal foreign legion are basically a pack of thugs from Zimbabwe:




Tooling around in Tobruk, looking for some ass to kick.




Suspected African mercenaries stand in a room in a court in Benghazi as they are held by anti-Qaddafi protesters, February 24, 2011


If these guys are anything like any and every African soldier I ever trained, worked with or encountered on the battlefield; they've all got malaria, half of them can't read or write, and their only understanding of the Law of Land Warfare is that they're breaking every law in the book. No matter how hard you train them, in contact they revert to the "spray-and-pray" school of gunfighting and the safest place to be when they're shooting at you is right out in the middle of the street because they can't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside.




A dead Zimbabwean, formerly in the hire of Muammar Qaddafi


These are heathen savages, capable of the most horrific atrocities. To call them barbarians is an insult to all barbarians everywhere and the only thing professional about Qaddafi's mercenaries is the fact that they've been doing what they're doing for a prerequisite period of time. Their knowledge of tactics or gunnery starts at the buttstock of their Kalishnikov and ends at the business end.




Amongst Africans, the term "mercenaries" has mystic, almost supernatural connotations.


Despite the public's fascination with the subject, there's a lot of misunderstanding about the term "mercenary". Most people consider a mercenary to be a soldier that serves merely for wages. According to this broad definition, practically every member of every standing, professional army in the world is a mercenary - and I've actually heard American soldiers referred to in this vein.

A more selective definition is found in Webster’s Dictionary: "a mercenary is a soldier hired into foreign service serving merely for pay or sordid advantage." According to this criteria, every foreign national serving in the U.S. military - including yours truly - is a mercenary.

According to the definitions found within the Hague and Geneva Conventions; a mercenary is a professional soldier hired by a foreign army, as opposed to a soldier enlisted in the armed forces of the sovereign state of which he is a citizen, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the Armed Forces of that Party" (Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of August 1949).

Non-conscript professional members of a regular army are not considered mercenaries even though they get remuneration for their service. Under this definition, even members of the French Foreign Legion and the Gurkha Regiment are technically not mercenaries under the Laws of Land Warfare, even though they meet many of the requirements of Article 47 of the 1949 Additional Protocol I; they are exempt under clauses 47(a)(c)(d)(e)&(f). Journalists tend to describe these soldiers as mercenaries regardless.

There ARE mercenaries out there; I have known a few. Adventurers, guns-for-hire, some of them I even consider professional counterparts, but more often than not their activities are of questionable legal or ethical nature. I myself have been called a mercenary but this is a stretch; I retired honorably from the military, and I work in the security profession. I am certainly not a criminal, and there are some things that I simply will not do for pay.

The notorious Thahan Phran (ทหารพราน; literally "Hunter Soldiers") - an irregular light infantry force which patrols the borders of Thailand - are considered mercenaries, although they are technically part of the Royal Thai Army, and they certainly are not foreigners.




Thai Tahan Prahn soldier on security perimeter.


The private security contractors in the hire of the U.S. Department of Defense or State Department are not mercenaries; they are technically no different than the private security manning the gates at U.S. government facilities throughout the United States - they not mercenaries anymore so than postal inspectors are Federal Law Enforcement.


On the other hand, Qaddafi's goons ARE mercenaries, although I consider them professionals only in that they serve for pay. And in light of the way these brigands are conducting themselves, they are not soldiers any more than the Khmer Rouge or Hitler's SS were; "uniformed organized crime" is how I refer to this kind of scum.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . SEAN LINNANE SENDS


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ADMIN NOTE

Hey Y'all:

I just deleted a comment beneath the post GUNNED DOWN IN VEGAS, due to its incendiary nature.

This is the first time I have taken such an action here on Blog STORMBRINGER - I am not about Political Correctness and I damn sure am not about censorship; calling for the citizenry to exact bloody revenge on cops is where I draw the line, however.

This is not within the bounds of a lawful, civilized society; in fact, these are dangerous thought patterns. To the (anonymous) author of that comment I say: go get your own blog - STORMBRINGER is not a soapbox for revolutionaries, and this is not where we are going with this thing.

While we're on the subject of comments, I get some real juicy ones over at FrumForum. A certain reader over there (who has a bone for me apparently) has accused me of being a racist for letting stand a comment here on STORMBRINGER that compared Michelle Obama to a Klingon. I let it stand because it was harmless, and it was funny, besides. Like I said I am not PC and I don't believe in censorship - I'll leave the book burnings, re-education sessions and political correctness to the Nazis, Communists and liberals in places like Berkeley.

Over the years I've been called lots of things - from way before the Internet even existed, as we know it. I've been labeled a Nazi (pretty funny when you consider all my time on the ground in Israel), a babykiller (that was in a Lesbian bar in Key West a couple of years after the Desert Storm aura wore off and the liberals were back on script- funny story, I'll tell it sometime), a racist (this despite the fact I am in a bi-racial marriage), and a mercenary. OK I can live with that last one, despite the fact that it is not exactly true - there are SOME things I simply won't do for money.


SEAN LINNANE SENDS


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THE NIGHT WATCH

(Dutch: De Nachtwacht), or The Shooting Company of Franz Banning Cocq, is one of the most famous works by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn.




This painting is renowned for three elements: its colossal size (11'10" X 14'4"), the effective use of light and shadow, and the perception of motion in what would traditionally have been a static military portrait.

Completed in 1642 at the peak of the Dutch Golden Age, it was customary during this time for military units to commission an artist to execute a group portrait. During this time military forces were commercial operations; true mercenaries. A man who hired himself to one of these private military companies was known as a "private soldier" - these are the origins of the military terms "company" and "private".

Commissioned by the Company's Commanding Officer and 17 members of his Kloveniers (civic militia guards), a total of 34 characters appear in the painting; Rembrandt was paid 1,600 guilders for the painting (each person paid one hundred), a large sum at the time.

The Night Watch depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash). With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd, the two gentlemen in the center (from whom the painting gets its original title), and the small girl in the center left background. Behind them the company's colors are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen.

The militiamen were also called Arquebusiers, after the arquebus, a sixteenth-century long-barreled gun.

Rembrandt has displayed the traditional emblem of the Arquebusiers in the painting in a natural way: the girl in yellow dress in the background is carrying the main symbols. She is a kind of mascot herself: the claws of a dead chicken on her belt represent the clauweniers (arquebusiers); the pistol behind the chicken stands for 'clover'; and, she is holding the militia's goblet. The man in front of her is wearing a helmet with an oak leaf, a traditional motif of the Arquebusiers. The dead chicken is also meant to represent a defeated adversary. The color yellow was at that time often associated with victory.

The painting was commissioned to be hung in the banquet hall of the newly built Kloveniersdoelen (Musketeers' Meeting Hall) in Amsterdam, now known as the Doelen Hotel. In 1715 it was moved to the Amsterdam town hall. When Napoleon occupied the Netherlands, the town hall became the Palace on the Dam. The magistrates moved the painting to the Trippenhuis of the family Trip. Napoleon ordered it back, but after the occupation the painting was moved to the Trippenhuis again, which had now become the Rijksmuseum, and was moved to the new Rijksmuseum building when it was finished in 1885.

The painting was last moved in September 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. The canvas was detached from its frame, rolled around a cylinder, and stored in a castle in Medemblik, north of Amsterdam.



The Night Watch, rolled.


After the end of the war, the canvas was unrolled, re-mounted and restored; and then the Night Watch returned to its rightful place in the Rijksmuseum where it is on prominent display; the most famous painting in their collection.


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EEBEN BARLOW

Eeben Barlow founded the Private Military Company (PMC) Executive Outcomes (EO) in 1989. The company trained SADF Special Forces in intelligence skills. Operating primarily in Africa helping African governments that had been abandoned by the West, EO served such corporate clients as De Beers (diamonds) and Ranger Oil in Northern Angola. EO later operated in Sierra Leone against the rebel movement RUF in that country and assisted Indonesian Special Forces in the hostage-release operation in Irian Jaya in 1996.

EO also operated in South America and the Far East. Nowadays Eeben Barlow lectures to military colleges and universities on defense, intelligence and security issues.



Eeben Barlow is currently an independent consultant. Eeben Barlow's Military and Security Blog is a serious look at military and security matters.




From Eeben Barlow's blog:


STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF WAR


When a nation’s armed forces are committed to war, the war is fought at three distinct yet inter-related levels. These three levels are:

1. Strategic Level

2. Operational Level

3. Tactical Level


Warfare at the strategic level can be broken down into four distinctive types of strategic warfare. These four types are:


1. Offensive Warfare

2. Defensive Warfare

3. Attrition Warfare

4. Revolutionary Warfare.


Each type of Strategic Warfare can be further broken down into different sub-types of warfare. As an example, Offensive Warfare can be subdivided into either a Distant Strategic Offensive or a Close Strategic Offensive – the type being determined by the proximity of the offensive.

At the Operational Level, usually confined to a specific theatre of operations, the military strategy is accomplished by the setting of operational objectives, within that specific theatre, to meet the military strategy’s goals. Poor planning, non-compliance to doctrine and inadequate tactics can result in failure, thus impacting negatively on the overall military strategy.

The Tactical level is that level where the techniques to attain the strategy are implemented by various unit levels such as a division, a brigade, a company or even a section. It is, therefore, at the Tactical level that tactics come into play. The tactics employed will be dependent on numerous factors such as the phase of war, the enemy, the terrain, the weather, own forces capabilities, the local population and so forth.




Eeben Barlow's autobiography: Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds




Whereas the principle aim of war is to always achieve victory over the enemy, regardless of the type of warfare, the modern-day war can be viewed as having five main strategic goals:


1. To repulse an aggressive act by the enemy, contain and destroy it.

2. To invade, conquer and destroy an enemy.

3. To seize and exploit the resources of an enemy.

4. To energise foreign policy by means other than diplomacy.

5. To gain favourable public opinion and strengthen national resolve and will.


To achieve these strategic goals, the military will adopt a specific posture in order to accomplish its allocated mission. The posture will thus be determined by the perceived enemy threat and will therefore determine the military’s doctrine and tactics.

The tactics, in turn, are related to the specific phase of warfare that is being implemented. These phases - excluding the intermediate or transitional phases - are:


1. The advance

2. The attack

3. The withdrawal

4. The defence


Sound military strategies will lead to well-developed doctrines, good planning based on sound intelligence and correct application of tactics. It is, however, at the tactical level that the war can be either won or lost.


This is where I disagree - the United States was never defeated on the tactical level in Vietnam; there was never a decisive Communist victory against United States Forces on the battlefield.

Perhaps this was because while we were engaged in a distant, strategic war; the Viet Communists were fighting Revolutionary Warfare, and were willing to adopt attrition tactics to achieve their Strategic aims.

The American defeat in the Vietnam Conflict was STRATEGIC in nature, and it occurred at Berkeley, Kent State, Columbia, and a hundred other college campuses, where the few of the anti-war movement held the many of the entire country hostage - Sean Linnane



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