By Carol A. Taber
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Military experts Bill Connor and W. Thomas Smith Jr. have formed National Defense Consultants, LLC, a partnership providing clients with military analysis ranging from geostrategy to special operations; counterterrorism; ground, Naval, and air combat; military leadership and military law. According to the company’s website, National Defense Consultants is “a single-stop consulting firm,” offering “individual clients, client companies, government agencies, policymakers, and media with the full-spectrum of military analysis, consulting, briefings (and client briefing preparation), educational information, white papers, physical force protection evaluations, and threat-assessment services, worldwide.”
Both partners have extensive operational military backgrounds.
Connor – an attorney, writer, decorated U.S. Army Reserve infantry officer (field grade), Ranger (Airborne), and an expert in counterinsurgency combat – is a former senior U.S. military advisor in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. A graduate of The Citadel and the University of South Carolina (USC) School of Law, Connor is a former candidate for S.C. Lieutenant Governor (making the runoff election in the Republican primary), a former national security advisor for presidential candidate Rick Santorum, the current GOP chairman for S.C.’s sixth district, director of the Army’s Command and General Staff College in S.C., and a member of the U.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team.
Smith – a former U.S. Marine rifle-squad (infantry) leader, parachutist, counterterrorism instructor, and SWAT team officer in the nuclear industry – is a technical consultant (for films airing on The Military Channel), author, a New York Times bestselling editor, and national director of the U.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team. A USC graduate and former adjunct professor, Smith is a veteran war correspondent (embedded with British contract security forces, U.S. Marine expeditionary units, a regimental combat team, U.S. Army cavalry, others), a former national security advisor for presidential candidate Rick Santorum, advisor to the S.C. Governor’s Military Base Task Force, and a senior field-grade officer in the S.C. Military Dept.
– Carol A. Taber, pres. of Family Security Matters (familysecuritymatters.org), is the former publisher of several national magazines including Working Woman, Working Mother and Success.