Bob Shepherd's Blog

After nearly 20 years of SAS operations, including a never before published role in the infamous Bravo Two Zero patrol, Bob Shepherd retired from the military to work as an advisor on the international commercial security circuit. Certain his most dangerous days were behind him, Bob settled into a sedate life looking after VIPs. Then 9/11 happened.

Bob found himself back in war zones on assignments far more perilous than anything he had encountered in the SAS: from ferrying journalists across firing lines in The West Bank and Gaza to travelling to the heart of Osama bin Laden’s Afghan lair. As part of a two-man team, Bob searched for ITN Correspondent Terry Lloyd’s missing crew in Basra, Iraq, while in Afghanistan he was forced to spend the night as the only Westerner in Khost – with a $25,000 bounty on his head.

As the War on Terror escalated, Bob contended with increasingly sophisticated insurgents. But the most disturbing development he witnessed was much closer to home: The Circuit’s rise from a niche business staffed by top veterans into an unregulated, billion dollar industry that too often places profits above lives. This is a pulse-racing and at times shocking testament to what is really happening, on the ground, in the major trouble spots of the world.

Review

“…this is a mature, experienced and grassroots view of the dirty, and dangerous, work involved in filling our television screens each evening with updates from the world’s troublespots. It also provides much food for thought about counter-insurgency doctrine and practice in complex human terrain. Finally, he raises the important issue of how the extensive use of private security contractors is increasingly counter-productive to the winning of counter-insurgency wars…”Defender – Summer 2007/08