Peruvian Vladimir Flórez was guarding the US consulate in Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew up a truck outside the gates, killing eight Afghans and sparking a firefight that lasted hours.
Like many Latin-American former soldiers, Flórez feels bitter at the conditions he endured then and his treatment since.
Others say they were used as “cannon fodder.”
It was September 13, 2013 when the then 32-year-old Flórez was on duty at the US diplomatic complex in the northwestern city of Herat alongside Colombians and Salvadorans.
He says he was hired to provide security – not to fight as a soldier.
The truck explosion, which was caught on camera, was so powerful “it sent me flying, I fell to the ground,” said Flórez.
“It took me two minutes to react. When I got up I saw everything was burning, people were screaming.”
He then spent two hours battling Taliban fighters before US troops arrived.
“They never gave me one single [extra] dollar for having saved the Americans,” Flórez told AFP.
‘Without adequate weapons’
Colombian Francisco Landínez says Latin Americans were left to fight for the United States “without any protection or adequate weapons.”
He says they were at “a complete disadvantage against a much better armed enemy.”
Essentially, they were used as “cannon fodder” by the United States, he said.
A retired soldier, Landínez runs the Oppressed Veterans Foundation from Miami, where the group is fighting for the rights of non-US security contractors hired to protect US interests in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are seeking the same pensions as US veterans, as well as the right of residence.
A study by Brown University estimated that more than 3,900 security contractors died in Afghanistan, most of whom were citizens of other countries.
“Many of these deaths were not reported,” said the study’s authors.
The US State Department declined to comment on the veterans’ campaign.
Post traumatic stress
Colombian former Army sergeant, who uses the pseudonym Jorge Estevez, has kept several military souvenirs, including a black badge that says “Afghanistan 2013” and photographs of him holding an M4 assault rifle.
Estevez was paid US$1,400 a month by a private security firm to patrol in Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat. That is a considerably more than the Colombian military pension of around US$350.
But it is still less than the pay for a US army conscript: US$1,600 to US$8,700 a month, according to official data.
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