BRISBANE TIMES: The opportunity to earn up to triple his normal salary proved as irresistible to Darren Hoare as it has to thousands of other former soldiers.
Over the past few years, these ex-servicemen regularly farewelled family and friends to fight in the private armies securing the deadly streets of Iraq.
Mr Hoare, a former RAAF airman and father of three from Willowbank, west of Brisbane, was killed on Sunday, one of two contractors allegedly shot during an argument with a fellow mercenary.
The deaths have once again cast a shadow on the fast-growing private security industry.
British newspaper The Times estimates there are 132,610 contractors working in Iraq for 32 security companies from the US and UK.
The contractors tend to be men with military backgrounds, who have traded in their uniforms to become guns for hire.
They are paid upwards of $1000 a day by private companies, governments or aid groups to act as bodyguards for VIPs or dignitaries and guard facilities. >>> Scott Casey | Tuesday, August 11, 2009
