For former soldiers, it's a chance to earn as much as $25,000 to $40,000 per month using the skills they learned and used for little pay in the military. All they have to do is survive exploding cars, road mines, rocket-propelled grenades, snipers, mortars, suicide bombers and military-grade assault rifles. More than 300 contractors have been killed.

"People call us mercenaries, but if someone paid you $500,000 to be a reporter in Iraq, you'd do it," says McIntosh. "And we have this patriotic feeling for the military. We're still fighting for our country. These are the same people who were in our military. Now they're trying to make money."

The top three security firms are Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp. McIntosh worked for the latter two. When he was profiled last year, he discussed the gray area in which private contractors operate. They are not under military, U.S. or Iraqi law and have immunity from prosecution.

"When we worked in Afghanistan, we had a diplomatic passport, and it can get you out of anything," he says. "You use it so many times."

That said, he adds, "There wasn't a time that we shot at anyone that we weren't first shot at. We would use warning shots into the road in front of them or into the engine block. Our first duty is to flee when we are shot at, because we're trying to protect people. We don't want a firefight. Our job is to avoid them."

Most private security guards are former elite soldiers — Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs — and are highly professional. But a year ago McIntosh himself expressed his concern over their declining professionalism. Surviving tryouts and training to be signed up for a security firm was once like making an NFL roster — only the elite made the cut. But with the increased demand for private contractors, the standards slipped dramatically. McIntosh joked that anyone who could pass Level 6 in the "Delta Force" video game was signed up.

"Those are the people who get into trouble and make a bad name for everyone," McIntosh said at the time.

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E-mail: drob@desnews.com