 He won the 2007 Ron Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize for coming forward with his story on April 4, 2007.Vance was a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago when he went to Iraq as a security contractor.Vance became an unpaid informant for the F.B.I., passing them evidence that seemed to suggest that the Iraqi security firm at which he worked might be engaged in illegal weapons trading, particularly to officials from the Iraqi Interior Ministry.