The simple reason is economics.
You can make an E4 do anything, he enlisted and signed a contract. The military decided it had better things to do with that E4 than checking ID's at the entrance gate - and didn't forsee the job lasting 20 years. Therefore, the decision was made to hire a "temp" to do the work. When the job is over, the temp is released, with no strings attached.
The E4 has job security and benefits, and the military looks to develop him into a SGM someday.
Try offering a civilian $30k a year to check ID's at a gate in Baghdad with no benefits. You won't fill the job. The market pays what is required to fill the position.
The Army has determined that the recruitment, training, and benefit costs of recruiting more E4's to pull gate guard is HIGHER than the costs for employing a contractor at $150k a year for 5-10 years. The contractor absorbs the recruitment cost, medical cost, etc. for him.
To get a new E4, you gave him a $40k enlistment bonus, spent $80k recruiting him (ads, recruiters, etc), $100k training him, $30k/year in salary, plus an additional $15k/year in benefits (housing, medical, etc), and accept that he might do 20 years where you have to pay half his final salary for the rest of his life. Not to mention the PCS costs, etc. And if he gets wounded, the govt has to pay for him for life. Not so for the contractor.
Overall, much cheaper to hire a contractor for the duration than to asorb the long term costs of the E4 for non-long term requirements. That can apply to gate guard, fueling, cooking, etc.
There is a break even point though, for each job. And I know it doesn't make it emotionally easier for that E4 to know that the civilian beside him doing the same job gets paid 4x-5x more. However, when I talked to my soldiers about it and explained it, most opted to stay in the army for the job security rather than short term gain with little long term prospects, and no "network" backing you up.
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