Reply #16: They are letting soldiers go so as to hire mercenaries

[DulceDecorum]

The Pentagon was griping about the amount of combat pay but it is more tan happy to shell out from $100 (one hundred) up to $1,000 (one thousand dollars) a day for this crowd.
And now, if you have your barf bag handy, take a look at this.

One of the most active strike-breaking firms is Vance Security, founded by Charles Vance, ex-son-in-law of ex-President Gerald Ford. Vance's agents were deployed against striking Greyhound drivers in the late 1980s and served as shock troops for the Pittston Coal Group, Inc. in its protracted and bitter battle with the United Mine Workers.
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When it comes to repression, one of the most versatile guard companies is Wackenhut, founded by a retired FBI agent. The security corporation operates 12 prisons, with plans for expansions, and runs a detention center in Queens, New York, under contract from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Detainees, who have not been charged with a crime but are awaiting an INS hearing on asylum claims, are confined in cinder block cells and denied access to outside grounds.

Wackenhut has received a number of security contracts from local governments, including assignments to patrol downtown Miami's shopping district, rest stops at Florida highways, and commuter trains in Denver. Wackenhut assisted in the installation of video cameras trained on Denver light rail riders and petitioned the city for permission to take over ticket-writing functions from local police.
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The security industry appears to be a magnet for the socially dispossessed. Security jobs are readily available and do not require specialized skills or extensive education. At the same time, a guard's uniform and gun offer a sense of power and authority lacking in most service sector jobs. Experts who monitor the industry point to a fascination with guns and police work as common characteristics found among security guards. Some individuals turned to private security firms after failing to pass tests to become police officers. Timothy McVeigh, the accused Oklahoma City bomber, signed on as a security guard after flunking the Green Berets' psychological tests.

Although no agency records crime statistics for offenses committed by security guards, anecdotal evidence is voluminous. Private security guards in action offer a mix of the macabre and the Keystone Cops:

Hoping to receive a commendation for reporting it, Michael Huston, a guard for Burns International Security Services, set fire to a trash can full of papers at Hollywood's Universal Studios in early 1992. The fire flared out of control, causing more than $25 million in damage to Universal's sets.
A former Wells Fargo guard stood trial in May for the 1984 murder of a 20-year-old student at Drexel University, the campus he was hired to protect. Police charged that the guard strangled the young woman for her sneakers so he could satisfy a shoe fetish. At the trial, another ex-guard described her fellow co-workers as alcoholics and drug addicts.
http://mediafilter.org/caq/CAQ54p.police.html