Kevin.D.Thomas

An Iraq Interlude covers in detail the author's two years spent in Iraq, from January 2004 until the end of February 2006, while he was working in private security contracted to Erinys Iraq.

 

The first few chapters cover the early 2004 period during which the author was in Baghdad, and adequately describe what it was like working on a SET (Security Escort Team) while on contract to USACE (United States Army Corps of Engineers). Following his being part of a SET operating out of the Green Zone, the author was then transferred as manager of another Erinys contract. This time it was to manage the security for a non-governmental organisation, the International Relief Development, situated outside the relative security of the Green Zone. During this contract the author lived on his own in the downtown Karrada suburb of Baghdad, and he shares with the reader both the humour, and the tensions that went with the job.

 

After the IRD departed from Baghdad due to a worsening security situation, the author was transferred to Basra as the Project Lead for Erinys SET Eagle 3 operating in the Gulf Region South (GRS). In this part of the book, he continues to share with the reader both the seriousness and the humour of the work involved in the private security sector within a hostile environment.

 

The author also writes about some of the more colourful characters he met, and worked alongside of in Iraq. Although a relatively light read, An Iraq Interlude has numerous photographs and the book will certainly resonate with those ex-Erinys personnel who were there during the period covered, and to anyone else who has worked in a similar environment.