THE PERILS OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY WORK

I met this young man John Neuhaus (not his real name) at an academic symposium on the international security scene. I thought he was kind of bright; he gave a presentation, represented himself as some kind of corporate due diligence (corporate counter-espionage/security) guy. John expressed interest in what I do; I'm always on the lookout for new talent so I developed the contact, as we say in the business.

John works for a security outfit in L.A. - he asked me about training resources so I put him in touch with a friend (Combat Frog) whose company was running a counter-surveillance course.

This is what the Frog came back with:

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From: Combat Frog
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 4:43 PM
To: Sean LINNANE
Subject: John Neuhaus

Sean,

Where the f*ck did you meet this John Neuhaus sh*tbag? We had to kick that stupid f*ck out of our course, which we let him sit in for free.

Reasons:

1. Acting and talking like he was some CIA operator

2. Telling us how many firefights he'd been in.

3. Telling one of the staff that he thought he was gay

4. Later, trying to proposition that same staff member

5. Hitting on one of the instructors wife.

He's lucky he left the course alive. He's damn lucky I was not the one that had to terminate him! What the f*ck dude????

Frog

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I got on the horn with the Frog right away and opened up with "What are you doing Frog??? John is my best man in my operation! YOU BROKE HIM!!!"

This attempt at humor went over like a fart in a recompression chamber. Man oh man it was worse hearing it straight from the horses mouth. Frog was telling me, "I hope you're joking Sean because you don't want this guy anywhere near your operation! He is beyond flakey, this guy is going to give us all a bad name by association! Cut away, bro! Cut away!"

I apologized profusely of course for wasting Frog's time, and spreading stress & anxiety into his organization. Frog said at the end of Day One the instructors were talking about cutting this guy a Certificate of Attendance and sending him on his way. Then that night at the hotel they were doing a tradecraft training exercise and afterward our man says to one of the role players - who turned out to be the instructor's wife - "Aren't you going to follow me up to my room?" and that was the final nail in the coffin. They sent him packing and didn't want their name or logo associated with him in any way shape or form.

I felt so bad; still do, in fact. This is what I get for trying to help somebody out. All I've got to say is at this point is if this guy is representative of the next generation of warrior then the human race is doomed. This is the end result of a generation that's been on medication all their lives; never worked hard a day in his life, looking for a way to shortcut the system and is probably one of the ones who gave us Obama.

From here on out I only work with people with military or intelligence backgrounds who are vetted & vouched for. Any young guy shows up, wants to get involved in the industry, he can go about it the same way me and all my buddies got here; you gotta pay your dues.

Everybody knows if you want to get into the Shao Lin Temple, you gotta wait outside in the heat and the rain, up to six months maybe, before they let you in - and even then they only let you sweep the floor for the first couple of years. Wax on, wax off.

In the end the Frog and I had a bit of a laugh over it - we're good enough friends and we know each other well enough that this Neuhaus guy's shit doesn't splatter on to me.



"That's my story and I'm sticking to it!"


- STORMBRINGER SENDS