Has anyone ever wondered why we like to make things out to be more official nowadays? I was listening to NPR (laugh and I'll hunt you down and gut you like a fish) and there was a story about private contractors in Iraq. What drew my attention was this;
Private Contractors: the Bush/Right Wing/stupid(no offense ment) phrase for Mercenaries.
I mean doesn't anyone realize thats all they are? They carry guns, wear combat suit and armor, and shot at stuff for the companies that hire them. Who on earth would think otherwise? Yet we keep calling them private contractors. Well, i guess they are under contract but still, that's merc work if I've ever heard of it and they're getting paid better than the US soldiers over there. Thus, mercs.
Alright, for an entire year I studied these guys for debate. They are not "mercenaries". Of course you can go to Kenya and buy the ones that carry guns and shoot whatever you tell them, but most of them are trained war veterans. They are called Contractors because they are not just meant to kill. They can do recon, construction and engineerings, along with a bunch of other stuff that I dont want to look up. There are thousands of contractors in Iraq right now, and most of them are not just hired killers.
A fair point and a fault on my generalization for which I apologize. But some of those people are mercenaries whether you want to say so or not. Anyone hired to carry weapons in that country and is not serving in a coalition military force directly is a mercenary. Afterall mercs aren't defined by being killers, they're defined by the fact that they get bloody well paid to do their job, unlike the poor men in our military forces.
Their still mercenaries, technically speaking. But the point is most people think of a mercenray as some sleazy guy you hire in an alley to kill someone. Most of these guys are trained professional. But yes, they do get lpaid an ungodly amount of money for doing the same thing Marines do.
