Quote Originally Posted by Sargent View Post
Maybe there's something useful that can be done with the former service personnel -- a draft? If they're so keen to serve, why not go back on active duty? Oh yeah, because for doing the same jobs they get paid way more than the military personnel. And if it costs less to hire one of them than to send a Lance Corporal, it's because we the tax payers have already paid for their training, which the private corporations get to leverage at no cost to their own bottom lines. (Maybe we should demand a rebate from them?) But I think the cost savings is more like a shell game -- I don't think it's really costing us less in the long run.

So, I'm not much of a believer. War is not business, and it cannot be run like one. It has costs, and trying to minimize those costs according to business principles is a bad idea all around. If we cannot afford those costs, then we need to rethink how we fight. Or we need to consider whether the effort is worth the cost. But to think we can cheat the costs of war is a foolish game.

V/R
Jill
In the long run it is cheaper. No VA claims, no retirement, no family medical coverage. Think how much of this comes out of the defense budget alone. Is there anything wrong with me benefiting from my training? Afterall it was my time, blood, sweat,and tears that went into it? Is it any different than any other person out there? If said company trained me,then their competition comes along and offers me twice the money, do they owe them anything? Problem now is the knee jerk reaction, especially in SOF. Let's see, I can continue to do 6 month rotations making $50-$60 thousand a year or I can do contract work making 3 times that in the same amount of time. For me money isn't everything, besides I refuse to work with subpar organizations, very few of these PMCs today hire quality over quantity and the ones who do you never hear about unless it's them contacting you personally. Unfortunately as is the nature of todays world many quality guys jumped on this early on,got their share of the money,saw it wasn't what they thought it was and moved on, but not back into service. No thanks keep your money and subpar employees.