Employees say they have heard little from major defense contractor V2X Inc about safety and evacuation protocols
Employees of major defense contractor V2X Inc on US military bases in Kuwait say they lack adequate bunker facilities and have had their pay reduced amid Iranian missile attacks across the Persian Gulf region, while receiving limited communication from their employer about safety and evacuation procedures.
The Guardian interviewed three V2X employees on the US bases Camp Arifjan and Camp Buehring in Kuwait, following Iranian missile strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan on Saturday.
The attacks follow United States and Israeli strikes on Iran earlier on Saturday. Iran has since launched a series of retaliatory attacks targeting US military bases and, according to regional authorities, some civilian infrastructure in the Persian Gulf.
So the reason it’s odd is that usually the Military is the last to leave an area if something is going down. Most military contractors aren’t actually fighting, they are handling logistics, IT, translation, and whatever repairs the big companies lobbied the government to make illegal for the military to do. As civilians generally doing the same kinds of work as civilians just in hostile territory they are typically paid quite highly, evacuated first and only return when things are quite stable. The Backwater folks are very much a minority and a completely different kettle of fish.