being a mercenary ain't easy

So says the Salt Lake Tribune. The Pentagon's hired guns "don't often have the kind of protection afforded their uniformed counterparts."

The cash is good. Really good. One-hundred-thousand-for-six-months-work good. Sometimes, it's even better than that. And that's nothing to scoff at for soldiers who don't make a quarter as much for a full year's work.
But worth it for the job they're contracted to do?
Standing in the dining room of her Murray home, Carol Thomas Young gazes downward at a framed photograph of her son.
"No way," she says, staring into the glass with tears in her eyes. "It's not worth it at all."

These folks put their lives on their line for Bush and his cronies, while the 101st flying keyboards cheer from the sidelines but would never dream of enlisting. Why? Because they don't have to: they make enough money that they are desperate enough risk being the next hostage executed on Al Jezzera.

27 year old Brandon Thomas signed up for mercenary duty when he learned that his National Guard unit wasn't going to be called up any time soon. He died in one of those massive car bombings in Bagdad that tend to blur together these days. The company he worked for got $20 million in contracts, some even from Fox News.

These companies save money by giving them no meaningful armor and not paying them until they are over in Iraq or Afghanistan, where they can't go into Wall-Mart and buy a vest. Remember all those stories of the US military spending hundreds of billions on missile defense (Star Wars) while failing to protect their own soliders in combat zones? Now imagine a greedy, corning cutting defense contractor being in charge. And they get you by flashing cash in your face:

The e-mails started popping into Rodney Allen's inbox three months before he left the U.S. Marine Corps. The messages came from a recruiter working for Dyncorp, one of the largest private security providers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They were offering a one-year contract with the company, providing security for various officials in Iraq," Allen says. "It was starting at $160,000 a year."
As a noncommissioned officer in the Marines, the Utah native had been making about $27,000 annually.

"Well-qualified contractors - particularly those with special forces experience - can fetch that much [$130,000] in six months. And some have reported contracts exceeding $1,500 a day, the equivalent of about $550,000 a year. "

Meanwhile, the National Guard is staying officially neutral on joining up as a mercenary, while basically giving it their blessing. "I've never heard of an instance where the Guard says 'No, you shouldn't work there,' " said one soldier.