New Job Center Training Ex-Blackwater Agents in non-Rape, Murder Skills
A profound sense of disorientation fell over David Shipp upon his return to the United States after completing an 18-month contract with Blackwater (now Xe Services) in Iraq, where he could shoot anyone who looked at him cross-eyed and be paid by the head.
Back in his newly strange native country, where rape and mass murder is generally frowned upon, Shipp felt disabled, useless – until he got an idea. Knowing that other contract military personnel were experiencing the same difficulties adjusting to the domestic job market, Shipp opened New Horizons Job Corps, a vocational training center dedicated to recalibrating the skill and mindsets of former hired killers.
"I knew a guy in Blackwater who decided to try his hand at stand-up comedy when he got back home, and he killed. Literally. He shot five people in the crowd and raped a woman at gunpoint before the police took him down in a hail of gunfire," recounted Shipp, "When I first heard that story, I couldn't figure out why the police had even been called. Then it started to come back to me, and I thought up New Horizons."
Offering 3 and 6-month job training and re-integration programs, New Horizons boasts a roll-call of 32 ex-Blackwater contractors, and recently celebrated the graduation of its first student, Greg Lewis, who is currently facing sexual assault charges in Raleigh, North Carolina.
New Horizons student Brian Powell praised the school's electrician training program, which has taught him how to confront electrical problems without resorting to rape or murder.
"Back in Baghdad, whenever the lights went out we'd just open fire and start raping every woman in sight," Powell said, "But that kind of stuff doesn't fly in the States. When an American family calls for electrical help, they expect you to come over and fix their wiring or whatever, not hogtie everybody and shoot them execution style."
New Horizons Job Corps is funded by a classified federal contract. Its location is unknown.