From what I am seeing, the big pay is pretty much going out the window, even for the Blackwaters of the world.

But the point bears examining.

Basically, the US Army has taken a "cookie-cutter/bureaucracy" approach to paying it's employees, and refuses to recognize that there is the possibility that a pure trigger-puller may be worth as much as a field grade staff officer.

I disagree. I think that there is room, in the Army, to reward excellence at every level, and recognize incompetence through pay. There are plenty of officers; even senior officers that are not worth a really good machinegunner. I would be interested in seeing a system that "re-incentivizes" soldiering.

One also hears words like "mercenary" thrown about quite a bit, but last time I checked, soldiers received a paycheck just like contractors do. Plus, since contractors are under UCMJ, anyway, what's the difference?

In addition to eliminating rank-entitled pay, I'd also be interested in forcing members of the military to compete for their jobs. Up to and including General Officers.

Radical ideas, but they've been bouncing around in my brain-pan for a while now....