Erik Prince is a former Navy SEAL and the founder of Blackwater, a training and private military contractor company that worked extensively with the US government in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He recently published an op-ed detailing a plan to "privatize" the war in Afghanistan. 

Many people will associate the name Blackwater with PMC's (Private Military Contractors) and the controversy surrounding the Nisour square shooting in 2007, and the subsequent loss of their license to operate in that country.  

Often, contractors are referred to as "mercenaries," a term used pejoratively, and largely inaccurately.  Civilians have served on the front lines and in war zones with active duty soldiers since the inception of warfare, and I believe the discussion should be about defining their operational parameters, not their presence there.