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Outlook: Outlook Weekend: The Bodyguard

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The back of a secret service agent's head

01/04/2017 GMT

Outlook Weekend: The Bodyguard

BBC World Service - Outlook, Outlook Weekend: The Bodyguard

Inside the turbulent, surprisingly intimate and often violent world of bodyguards.

What it's like to protect the First Lady Jackie Kennedy, head to Iraq to work in private security and guard Russia's LGBT community.

Clint Hill was assigned as the bodyguard to American First Lady Jackie Kennedy from 1960 to 1964. On the day that President John F Kennedy was shot, Clint was riding in the car immediately behind the President and his wife. He leapt onto the car to try to protect the President from the bullets but was unable to save him. The fact that Clint didn't take the bullet that killed the President has haunted him for decades.

Tapir works as a bodyguard protecting events for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Russia. He himself identifies as gender queer -somewhere between male and female.. His father didn't understand - and thought that sending him into the army might change him.

In 2004 Neryl Joyce resigned from her job as a soldier in the Australian army. She was a single mum with a young son, but she didn't turn her back on danger. Neryl became a private bodyguard in war-torn Baghdad. Her first job was guarding members of Iraq's electoral commission, a key target for insurgents as they would be responsible for organising the first democratic elections since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Image: The back of a secret service agent's head
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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