Fitness guru to stars, Army vets among civilians killed

[leanings]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After serving 12 years in the Navy, Scott Helvenston started a career as a fitness instructor and worked as trainer and stunt man for such movies as Face/Off and G.I. Jane.
He helped prepare actress Demi Moore for her role as the first woman to join the Navy SEALs in G.I. Jane, and appeared on two reality series: Man vs. Beast and Combat Missions.

But after years out of the service, friends said they weren't surprised to learn the former SEAL had left the comfort of his life in California behind him and headed for Iraq.

"That's what, in a time of need, true American warriors like Scott would do," producer Mark Burnett said Thursday.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-02-fallujah-profiles_x.htm

[LittleApple81]

1. True American warriors go and work as mercenaries? n/t

[private_ryan]

2. no need to knock them

it's a job. They were getting paid a lot for something they did a for barely nothing.

[leesa]

11. No sympathy for them. They chose to go work in a war zone for

big bucks. So be it.

[private_ryan]

12. if you choose to be a cop

and die, no sympathy? What if you choose to be a race car driver and die, no sympathy at all?

[Eye and Monkey]

13. Race car drivers train to kill their competitors?

I wasn't aware that NASCAR had become quite that extreme.

[Voltaire99]

18. They're in a foreign nation illegally

Or have you failed to notice that Iraq did not invite these professional killers in? Do pay attention: it's your nation waging this immoral war.

[leftchick]

24. race car drivers = mercenaries?

sorry, very bad analogy. Nothing they were doing was "heroic". It was about LOTS of taxpayer money paid for them to kill targeted Iraqis. They knew the consequences if they were caught.

[saigon68]

27. These Mercenaries aren't cops

They are thugs working for the highest bidder. They would jump in a lake and screw fish if you paid them enough..

[madrchsod]

3. there is a thread

from this morning that links to an article about these guys and what their friends or relatives think about what happened to them. it was interesting to say the least...maybe someone will dig it up and post the thread link.

[montanacowboy]

4. Yep, true Americans

who make $500 a day killing people - wow! what a guy.

[saigon68]

28. They are hit men with a mobster mentality

Hired by the Bush criminals to keep the locals in line.

[Magleetis]

5. The same story was on Yahoo this am

I'm sure the fact the he was making in excess of $500.00 a day had nothing to do with it. <s/o>

[Bushfire]

6. Coming from the mouth of a good Capitalist Pig aka Burnett

making money from "Reality" staged shows, while the real reality is an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation. No wonder other countries hate us.

I bet Bruce Willis knew this former soldier turned mercenary, and probably still hasn't paid up on that million for whoever found Saddam.

[Tuttle]

23. Can't you just picture the situation room at Fox television....

they are probably trying to figure out if they can cross-the-line or not by producing a 'reality show' based on being a bodyguard to our viceroy: 'if they survive, they win Bruce Willis' $1M; if they don't, they die (and Fox wins!)'

Tut-tut

[0007]

34. ...just got the picture in my minds eye at FAUX tv

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. The guy looked to be a pretty boy thrill seeker

Kind of like the guys that climb Mt Everest. Solder of fortune and all that. I think that his face was actually recognizable in one of those pictures.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Eye and Monkey]

19. Just guessing, but, no, it probably wouldn't have anything to do with it.

Why would an expensive mercenary want to rip the lips off a casual observer, anyway? Any ideas?

Please identify what exactly indicates that Casual Observer is "rejoicing".

[Flagg]

21. "The fact he could probably rip your twinkie-stuffing lips off your face w

not anymore he couldn't

he's dog shit now
literally

[saigon68]

22. I wonder if thet'll get the bodies back

I wonder if the CHIMPANZEE will go to the funerals of his "private operators"

[Malva Zebrina]

30. I wondered the same

all this fuss over these four mercenaries and no fuss at all over our precious children being killed and brought home in tubes, in the middle of the night and no photos allowed and no recognition of them At ALL by their stupid asshole AWOL Commander , dressed in costume, in cowardly Chief.

How dare he? How dare this stupid, ignormus, coward pretend he is a commander in chief? How dare he pretend he is a president? He is nothing but a liar--who has lied to us from day one--it is his normal sociopathic mode to do so.

Next stop for him and probably the frump again travelling to exotic places on our money while wearing her tablecloths--Normandy--and ugh--we will have to suffer through those sugary photo ops of the asshole strutting through all those white crosses as if he even knows a thing about the history or WWII

Get his ass out of that White House.

Go back to the dry gulch you prick where five thousand idiots have congregated in DAllas to declare that the consitution is a dumb idea and needs to be replaced by the baby Jesus. and take the stupid, banal, submissive lump of a frump with you.

[saigon68]

31. Yes its sad

PFC Smith from Tennessee buried and gone

[The_Casual_Observer]

26. Twinky lips sees another sunrise

unlike fitness guru.

[boobooday]

8. TRUE Americans are Warriors

From Webster:

Etymology: Middle English werriour, from Old North French werreieur, from werreier to make war, from werre war -- more at WAR
: a man engaged or experienced in warfare; broadly : a person engaged in some struggle or conflict

So. True Americans are warmongers.

Would it bother him that the word is of French origin?

Blessed are the peacemakers.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[realdeal22k]

9. Most of what I have read says the mercenaries deserved it

I don't know enough about their mission to say but the overwhelming opinion is that they had it coming for being mercenaries. :shrug:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. You sure have written a lot of inflammatory posts in such a short time.

[Redleg]

16. The overwhelming opinion where?

Not all of us here at DU rejoice when fellow Americans die overseas.

[DulceDecorum]

17. Some of us

rejoice whenever a mercenary of ANY nationality gets his just deserts.

He would not comment at all on the governments of Zimbabwe, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea describing the men as mercenaries.

Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday afternoon that her department was in no rush to assist the South Africans in Zimbabwe, or another group which is under house arrest in Equatorial Guinea.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1496771,00.html

"It is all a dreadful misunderstanding. These things happen very often for reasons that seem very plausible to the authorities at the time." - Charles Burrow, a senior executive at British company Logo Logistics, in a statement, after an airplane and 64 men, suspected of being mercenaries, were impounded in Harare by the Zimbabwe government.

"I know one man has addressed the diplomatic corps and explained what funny things they were doing up there." - Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, on the arrest of the alleged mercenaries. She said they were "indeed" linked to a planned coup in Equatorial Guinea.

"We don't like the idea that South Africa has become a cesspool of mercenaries." - Dlamini-Zuma, after it was revealed 20 of the men were South Africans.

"They are not exactly innocent travellers finding themselves in a difficult situation," - Dlamini-Zuma, saying that her department was in no rush to assist the South Africans.
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1497270,00.html

Another one bites the dust.

[Occulus]

25. I think many of us

don't consider mercenaries to be fellow Americans. See, Americans are bound by treaty and international law wherever they go. These guys aren't. They are no more my 'fellows' than the members of al Qaeda.

These people kill for money. They did indeed get what they deserved.

(I'd like to point out that, although our soldiers do the same, they are under orders, bound by international law and the Geneva Convention, and are paid substantially less. If you think of all the military families just barely getting by, or the National Guard families who have basically been made indigent because of a massive income loss while thei breadwinner is in Iraq, well, the very presence of Blackwater and other "security companies" iverseas is basically a huge slap in the face to our legitimate soldiers. Again, these mercenaries got what they deserved and I have no shame in saying so.)

[lanlady]

10. a hired gun

gee, what a guy.

[saigon68]

29. Dead Now

sorry

[leftofthedial]

20. nothing any of those people are doing over there is FOR their country

fools.

He may have been a warrior, but he was not in the true service of America.

[uhhuh]

33. True

If their intention was to serve, they could have signed up and requested to be deployed there. We currently have troops in their 30's and 40's there. I think I read about some guy in his 50's also.
If they were doing this out of love of country, they could have joined the NG or another branch and requested Iraq duty.
These guys seemed to want the better wages and lax rules of a mercenary.
I don't delight in their deaths, but I'm also not saddened or shocked that paid mercenaries are being targeted. When they contracted themselves, they had to know they were requesting to be shot at and possibly killed. They wanted to be there for the money.

It sucks that they died,but not as much as someone who didn't ask to go. I feel bad for their families though.

[SoCalDem]

32. M O N E Y ...makes people do lots of dumb things

mix it with a pinch of bravado, a heaping spoonful of testosterone, a 10 lb bag of propaganda.... stir vigorously, and Boom... Game over.