[livius]

I just noticed a post in which Howlin says that Berg's family and friends were the investors, so it's possible that "stockholders" referred to them. In which case it wouldn't be a particularly suspicious reference.

However, since it seems from earlier threads that the company was unregistered and there aren't any records on how it was structured, what profits it made, etc., I guess this would be pretty hard to check out.

This entire e-mail is full of puzzling things.

[Quilla]

This Berg email from Iraq along with following comment sheds a bit of light on the stockholder mystery. It appears to me that he was sharing information with some folks who understood tower jargon:

It's unheard of for a company to actually have skilled specialists here – I think this gives us an advantage, but we have to get past the "I have a friend" stage. I'm hoping a good business manager will move this along.

[Howlin]

That's the way I read that "stockholders" remark; that may not be correct!