Spy and Spirit #5 - Retired Frogmen
How do the veterans of elite units worldwide cooperate or conflict with each other after they’ve retired and established themselves in businesses unconstrained by national loyalty? I thought that would be a cool movie -
‘Retired Frogmen’ - ex-commandos from all over the world - who trained and fought together in various theaters against guerillas, insurgents, or terrorists - end up competing with one another as cutthroat businessmen.
The modern class of elite, hardened veterans is a diverse bunch. It includes men from Colombia, Iraq, Pakistan, and others who would not be in your top three. Many sealed their legends in the crucible because war raged a stone’s throw from their doorsteps. (I wrote a book about one from Iraq.) Some were eventually broken by the intensity of their memories. Some reconciled them as deeds of a different day.
Others doubled down on the lifetime warrior identity, using it to advance their ambitions as realist power brokers. The US and Israel have produced famous veterans who proved to be very enterprising men. Binyamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu was Sayeret Matkal - an Israeli commando outfit modeled initially on the British SAS. Erik Prince, the founder of the amorphous Private Military Company formerly known as Blackwater, is an ex-Navy Seal. Both are committed to realist, oppressive, anti-democratic doctrine. Colder than the cold. Fierce and capable in a world where rules and conventions are the stuff of fairy tales. This isn’t a damn movie!
As the iron fist of the Israeli Right, Bibi cemented his infamy by succumbing to the urgent threats of the day with endless bouts of bloodshed. Prince represents the mainstream image of mercenaries—the kind who deal in hard, cold, capitalist decisions behind the headlines. Delivering weapons to an aspiring dictator in a failed state pays handsomely. He gets away with breaking international law because he’s a facilitator like Viktor Bout or Yevegeny Prighozin - eventually, the Kremlin or the CIA needs him, and we’re all complicit.
Prince might balk at democracy in Africa or the Middle East. Bibi would cringe at the thought of embracing his enemies. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Both (especially Bibi) are paying the price for their worldviews. That is to say, they’re paying it until they’re victorious and prove themselves right.
This is SPY: the knowledge that your skills, experience, and willpower give you power over countless others.
And this is SPIRIT: The decisions that continue your path of destruction or align you toward healing.